Journal of Advances in Environmental Health Research
Volume:4 Issue: 4, Autumn 2016

Locating landfills in urban areas is one of the most important issues in urban planning because of the effect on economy, ecology, and environment, therefore the right management and principled landfilling of solid waste is the major concern all over the world especially in the developed countries. In locating landfills, different criteria should be considered. In the present study, locating sites for solid landfill of two industrial suburbs in Natanz using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was investigated so as to present optimal solutions. Three places were investigated as suggested sites and seven factors like distance from the industrial suburb, ease of access, cost of site preparation, access to covering soil, wind direction, soil penetration, and groundwater direction were considered in the decision-making process. Super Decisions software was mployed to create hierarchy network, compare criteria and sub criteria, and finally choose better choice. Based on the results, the third choice located in northeast of Shojaabad suburb and southeast of Ooreh suburb (almost between two suburbs) was selected as the best choice to bury the industrial wastes of these suburbs with score of 0.618 based on the software results. The incompatibility rate was 0.069.

Coagulants exert a significant influence on removing turbidity, TSS and COD. This study has examined the effects of poly-aluminium chloride (PAC), aluminium sulphate (alum) and ferric chloride on removal of turbidity, TSS, COD from greywater in residential complexes of miners working in decorative stone mines. Also, a comparison was undertaken with the electrocoagulation system to find out whether it was economical. Samples were collected over three days from the outlet pipes of greywater in the downstream of a village. The samples were sent to the laboratory to measure their organic materials. However, the Jar test was implemented by using all three coagulants, at concentrations of 100 to 1200 ppm. The results illustrate that the highest percentage of turbidity, COD and TSS removal were 98.24%, 94% and 77.25% respectively, which are related to PAC coagulant. The lowest cost to remove the organic materials in the coagulation method was harvested US $ 0.09/m3 for alum and howbeit. The cost for electrocoagulation method yielded US $ 0.05/m3 water.

The objective of our study was to simulation of carbon monoxide (CO) dispersion exited from the stacks of a cement industry of Doroud, Iran by Gaussian Model (GM). Four sampling period was conducted to measurement of CO from the factory's three-stack flow during one year. The input parameters for were the rate of CO emission, meteorological data, factors of related to the stack, and factors of related to the receptor. Parameters were corporate and the dispersion of CO during four season was modeled. The southwesterly winds were dominated during recently five years. The highest and the lowest CO levels were estimated at spring and fall seasons with maximum amounts of 842.06 and 88.31 µg/m3 within distances of 526 and 960 m away from the cement plant, respectively. Although, the maximum predicted CO concentration at four seasons were lower than the NAAQS standard, the simulation results can be used as a base for reduction of CO emissions rate, because the long-term exposure to emissions of cement plant imposes potentially significant health and environmental impacts.

It is accepted that noise pollution has a major impact on health, such as physical, physiological, psychological and performance related effects, all over the world. This study aims to evaluate noise pollution in four urban parks located in Sanandaj City, Iran and to zone it in GIS environment. Sound pressure level (SPL) and maximum sound level (Lmax) were measured at 45 points (each point was measured in a duration of 1 min) spread throughout the parks. The measurement of SPL alongside Lmax was performed using a sound-level-meter TES-1351A. Location of measuring points was recorded using GPS. The noise pollution was found to be more than 50 dB (A) during the day and 40 dB (A) at night, which are within the prescribed standard level for commercial-residential-recreational zones by Iran National Environmental Standards. The Lmax of Amirieh, Koodak, IT, and Maolavi parks were 73.3, 74.31, 74.88, and74.79 dB (A), respectively. Moreover, the SPL of Amirieh, Koodak, IT, and Maolavi parks were 56.99, 60.27, 59.47, and 60.93 dB (A), respectively. Amirieh Park had the lowest Lmax and SPL due to high cover vegetation and lack of high road traffic, whereas the other three parks showed the maximum amount of Lmax and SPL due to the surrounding traffic routes. Improving the parks acoustic conditions through noise insulation using green barriers decorated with plant material can be considered as effective method in order to decrease noise to acceptable level in all the parks.

The sonocatalytic activity of nano-sized ZnO powder was studied via the degradation of the Direct Blue 71 azo dye. The nano-sized ZnO powder that was selected was the same as that which was synthesized and characterized in our previous study. The influences of six operational parameters including the initial pH, the initial concentration, the dose of sonocatalyst, the ultrasound frequency, the ultrasound power, and the process time were investigated on the basis of process efficiency and energy consumption. The design of experiments was applied and the experiments were conducted according to the design. The experiments were carried out in a batch reactor. The experimentally obtained dye removal percent (DR%) and the energy consumption per mass ranged from 0.03–100 and 0.19–1273 (wh/g), respectively. The data were used for modelling by using reduced quadratic multiple regression models and the artificial neural network (ANN). Multi-objective optimization of DR% and EPM was applied by using the genetic algorithm (GA) over the outperformed ANN models. The mineralization was studied using total organic carbon analysis. The study indicated promising results in the application of both the novel sonocatalyst and the Artificial Intelligent Approaches.

Biological indicators are species that can be employed to monitor environmental quality and ecosystem health. Different groups of organisms such as plants, animals, bacteria and parasites regularly produce certain molecular signal in response to changes in their environmental milieu. Parasites are important tools for providing wealth of information on physicochemical quality, environmental stressors, trophic interactions, population structure, biodiversity, etc. Given that environmental degradation impacts occurrence frequency and intensity of fish parasites, they may serve as sensitive living probes to monitor environmental factors and ecological status of the water body. Population dynamics of parasites of fresh water fish have been studied involving several host species infected by monogenetic parasite, Gyrodactylus sp. The parasitological parameters such as prevalence, mean intensity, mean abundance of parasite were used for such aquatic biomonitoring purpose. There appeared to be distinct variation on parasitization and relationship between host and prevalence of infection. The present study indicates significant interaction between water quality variables and parasitism. Temperature seems to be the most important abiotic parameter that affected parasitic prevalence and load of infection. Under the pH range and dissolved oxygen level as encountered in the polluted sites, fish became stressed and vulnerable to be affected with parasitic infection. The present study presents a comprehensible view on how Gyrodactylus sp. can be championed as a sensitive and meaningful model for aquatic environmental study and an effective management tool for aquatic biomonitoring.

This research aims to monitor the trace elements content (Cr, Cu, Pb, Cd, Ag, Al, Mn, Mg, Zn and Fe) in the tissues of the muscle and liver of silver carp (H. molitrix ) and stone moroko (P. parva) from Zarivar Wetland in western Iran. This research was cross-sectional. The research specimen was fish caught from Zarivar Wetland. Metal concentration analysis was carried out utilizing an ICP. Findings indicate presence of Fe and Pb in the liver, Zn and Cd in the muscle hadthe highest and lowest metal concentration accumulated, respectively. The trace elements content in the liver tissue was higher than those in the muscle tissue of H. molitrix and P. parva. Moreover, the Hazard Quotients for an adult with mean of 71.5 kg was below 1 based on trace elements levels. Though, the mean concentrations of trace elements in the muscle of H. molitrix and P. parva was lower than international standards. according to the uptake and distribution, these elements require periodic monitoring in the human body.

The present study was aimed at comparing the ability of three crop plants for phytoremediation of zinc (Zn) and nickel (Zn) from soils. A factorial (3×2×3) experiment based on RCBD was used to compare the treatments, and was repeated three times. The first factor was crop type (wheat, clover and rapeseed), the second factor was heavy metal types (zinc (Zn) and nickel (Ni)) and the third factor was heavy metal concentration in soil (0.0, 50 and 100 mg.kg-1). With regard to plant type and heavy metal, the highest uptake was recorded in wheat for nickel (Ni) uptake. The lowest uptake of heavy metal was seen in clover crop and nickel (Ni) heavy metal. The highest Ni uptake was observed in wheat at the concentration of 100mg.kg-1. Nickel (Ni) was more absorbed in its higher concentration where the uptake of nickel (Ni) at the concentration of 100.0mg.kg-1 was 182% more than 50.0 mg.kg-1. Generally, the results of this experiment showed that it is possible to use phytoremediation as a suitable means for eliminating the excess concentration of zinc (Zn) and nickel (Ni). In this case, wheat was the superior crop and its mechanisms for removal of heavy metal require further investigation.