UN clinches global deal on cutting mercury emissions

Tom Miles and Emma Farge in Planet Ark: More than 140 countries have agreed on the first global treaty to cut mercury pollution through a blacklist of household items and new controls on power plants and small-scale mines, the United Nations said on Saturday. The legally-binding agreement aims to phase out many products that use the toxic liquid metal such as batteries, thermometers and some fluorescent lamps, through banning global import and exports by 2020.

The treaty will require countries with coal-fired power plants such as India and China to install filters and scrubbers on new plants and to commit to reducing emissions from existing operations to prevent mercury from coal reaching the atmosphere.

...The deal also includes measures to reduce mercury use in small-scale gold mining, although stopped short of an all-out ban. Gold prices near $1,700 a metric ton have spurred the use of mercury as a catalyst to separate gold from its ore.

...The Minamata Convention on Mercury - named after the Japanese city where people were poisoned in the mid-20th century from industrial discharges of mercury - needs ratification from 50 countries and is expected to be formalized later this year....

Beijing is not the only Asian city with lethal air pollution

John Vidal in the Guardian (UK): Air pollution in Beijing has been described as "apocalyptic" this week with people choking their way through murky streets, short of breath and their eyes stinging from toxic air. But Beijing is just one of hundreds of cities, largely in Asia, where poisonous air is now the fastest growing cause of death in urban populations.

In the past few months there have been acute air pollution incidents reported in Bangladesh, Iran, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Pakistan. In Tehran, the desperate authorities had to close all public offices, schools, universities and banks twice in the last two months; In Nepal the army has had to give up its cars and in Kabul it has been reported that there are now more deaths as a result of air and water pollution than from conflict.

Statistics are unreliable, with few cities able to monitor accurately either the source or the level of the cocktail of pollutants emitted by traffic, ships, industry, brick kilns and domestic heating. But go to the hospitals and doctors will tell you that up to 80% of people admitted come with respiratory or other chronic diseases linked to air pollution. In Tehran, more than 4,500 people were said to have died last year because of air pollution – but because cancers can take years to develop the true figure may be far higher.

Perhaps because there are no drugs available to counter air pollution, it has never been taken as seriously by governments as other diseases like HIV/Aids or malaria, even though the World Health Organisation estimates more than 2 million people worldwide die every year from bad air and that it is now among the top 10 killers in the world. But governments may have to act as new research shows it to be rapidly worsening....

Smog over Shanghai, shot by Seader, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

Pine beetle outbreak buffers watersheds from nitrate pollution

University of Colorado-Boulder News: A research team involving several scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder has found an unexpected silver lining in the devastating pine beetle outbreaks ravaging the West: Such events do not harm water quality in adjacent streams as scientists had previously believed.

According to CU-Boulder team member Professor William Lewis, the new study shows that smaller trees and other vegetation that survive pine beetle invasions along waterways increase their uptake of nitrate, a common disturbance-related pollutant. While logging or damaging storms can drive stream nitrate concentrations up by 400 percent for multiple years, the team found no significant increase in the nitrate concentrations following extensive pine beetle tree mortality in a number of Colorado study areas.

“We found that the beetles do not disturb watersheds in the same way as logging and severe storms,” said Lewis, interim director of CU’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. “They leave behind smaller trees and other understory vegetation, which compensate for the loss of larger pine trees by taking up additional nitrate from the system. Beetle-kill conditions are a good benchmark for the protection of sub-canopy vegetation to preserve water quality during forest management activities.”

....“The U.S. Forest Service and other agencies have established harvesting practices that greatly mitigate damage to forests caused by logging, and they deserve credit for that,” said Lewis. “But this study shows just how important the survival of smaller trees and understory vegetation can be to stream water quality.”

In waterways adjacent to healthy pine forests, concentrations of nitrate is generally far lower than in rivers on the plains in the West like the South Platte, said Lewis. Nitrate pollution is caused by agricultural runoff from populated areas and by permitted discharges of treated effluent from water treatment facilities....

Fog at the treeline in Rocky Mountain State Park, shot by Michael Gäbler, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

China pollution anger spills into state media

Terra Daily via AFP: Public anger in China at dangerous levels of air pollution, which blanketed Beijing in acrid smog, spread Monday as state media queried official transparency and the nation's breakneck development. The media joined Internet users in calling for a re-evaluation of China's modernisation process, which has seen rapid urbanisation and dramatic economic development at the expense of the environment.

Dense smog shrouded large swathes of northern China at the weekend, cutting visibility to 100 metres (yards) in some areas and forcing flight cancellations. Reports said dozens of building sites and a car factory in the capital halted work as an anti-pollution measure.

Doctors at two of the city's major hospitals said the number of patients with respiratory problems had increased sharply in the past few days, state media reported.

"Now it has been dark with pollution for three days, at least people are starting to realise how important the environment is," said one posting on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo.

At the height of the smog Beijing authorities said readings for PM2.5 -- particles small enough deeply to penetrate the lungs -- hit 993 micrograms per cubic metre, almost 40 times the World Health Organisation's safe limit....

Smog in Beijing in 2006, shot by Berserkerus, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Mali's fuelwood dependence proving difficult to break

Soumaila T. Diarra in AlertNet: Mali’s citizens almost universally prefer firewood and charcoal over gas as a fuel. As a result of their dependence, the west African country is losing large swathes of its forests, putting at risk efforts to adapt to climate change.

“A bag of charcoal costs only about 3,500 West African CFA francs ($7) and it is sufficient for my energy needs for a month,” said Saran Doumbia, a 30-year-old housewife from Bamako, the capital. In her neighbourhood of Lafiabougou, fuel wood and charcoal are the main sources of energy, and substantially cheaper than natural gas.

About 13 million hectares of Mali’s land area were forested in 2005, but the country is losing 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of forest every year, mainly due to cutting for fuel wood, according to a 2010 environment ministry report. For at least the last decade, deforestation has been a principal source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country, accounting for 35 percent of total emissions.

To deal with the problem, the government in 2011 launched a five-year programme to reduce dependence on fuel wood, in an attempt to protect the country against ongoing climate change. But the fragile political situation, as separatist rebels in northern Mali wage war an armed struggle against the government, has led international donors to suspend aid for such projects....

Salinisation of rivers: a global environmental problem

Universitat de Barcelona: The salinisation of rivers is a global problem that affects to countries all over the world and it causes a high environmental and economic cost, and poses a high risk to global health. Climate change and the increasing water consumption can worsen even more the future scene, according to an article published on the journal Environmental Pollution based on the research developed by an international team led by the experts of the Department of Ecology of the UB Narcís Prat and Miguel Cañedo-Argüelles. The article is also signed by Ben J. Kefford from the University of Technology of Sydney (Australia); Christophe Piscart from the University of Lyon (France); Ralf B. Schäfer from the University Koblenz-Landau (Germany); and Claus-Jürgen Schulz from the Thuringian State Institute for Environment and Geology (TLUG, Germany).

River salinity can be natural, caused by the geology of the area or the climatology, or anthropogenic, in other words, caused by domestic and industrial waste discharges, mining activity, agricultural and farming residues, etc. In worldwide river ecosystems, excessive salt concentrations caused by human activity are a threat to the survival of organisms and communities, biodiversity, the ecosystem’s biological balance, and it produces severe economical and public health problems.

According to Miguel Cañello-Argüelles, the main author of the article, “this article aims at giving a integrating view and emphasize the seriousness of the ecological, economic and global health effects that secondary salinisation has”. The expert remarks that it is a global process: “It happens in many regions from all over the world, although there is a great ignorance about the problem”. The most extreme case of salinisation occurs in some Australian rivers. “However —Cañedo-Argüelles adds—, in this case local studies have been done in order to clearly diagnose the problem; therefore, all the agents who make use of the natural resources of some rivers (farmers, industrialists, etc.) have collaborated in the process of finding solutions”.

In Europe, the process of river salinisation by human action is getting worse as years goes by. “It is also a problem in Spain”, declares the professor Narcís Prat, director of the Research Group Freshwater Ecology and Management (FEM) of the UB. “ In the Ebro plain, due to soil’s characteristic and the kind of agricultural activity performed, rivers are saltier than in Australia —he explains—, but here river conservation is not among the priorities of water resources management”, so these problems are not solved. According to Prat, the question is even worse in the region of Murcia: “It is a semi-arid area where irrigation is a common activity and rivers are saline as a result of the excessive exploitation of water resources”...

The Ebro River delta from the air, shot by Gons, Wikimedia Commons,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Lower nitrogen losses with perennial biofuel crops

Debra Levey Larson in the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences News: Perennial biofuel crops such as miscanthus, whose high yields have led them to be considered an eventual alternative to corn in producing ethanol, are now shown to have another beneficial characteristic–the ability to reduce the escape of nitrogen in the environment. In a 4-year University of Illinois study that compared miscanthus, switchgrass, and mixed prairie species to typical corn-corn-soybean rotations, each of the perennial crops were highly efficient at reducing nitrogen losses, with miscanthus having the greatest yield.

“Our results clearly demonstrate that environmental nitrogen fluxes from row-crop agriculture can be greatly reduced after the establishment of perennial biofuel crops,” said U of I postdoctoral research associate Candice Smith.  “Because of the establishment variability, we were able to compare annual row crops with perennial crops. Although in the first two years, nitrate leaching remained high in the non-established miscanthus crop, once a dense, productive crop was established in the second year of growth, nitrate leaching in tile drainage quickly decreased.”

Smith said that this ability to reduce the loss of nitrogen into the environment will prove to be greatly beneficial.

 “Intensive corn production with large fertilizer inputs leads to large losses of nitrogen into the environment, both through gas emissions of nitrous oxide and leaching of nitrate to surface waters through tile drainage systems,” added Mark David, U of I biogeochemist. “Nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas, and nitrate can contaminate drinking water supplies and leads to coastal ocean problems. The hypoxic zone that forms each summer in the Gulf of Mexico is a result of nitrate leaching from the tile-drained Corn Belt of the midwestern United States – a likely location for biofuel production,” he said....

An aerial view of the bioenergy farm near South First Street in Champaign, Illinois, photo from the university's website

Drainage ditches can help clean up field runoff

Ann Perry in USDA News: Vegetated drainage ditches can help capture pesticide and nutrient loads in field runoff, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists report. These ditches—as common in the country as the fields they drain—give farmers a low-cost alternative for managing agricultural pollutants and protecting natural resources.

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) ecologist Matt Moore at the agency's National Sedimentation Laboratory in Oxford, Miss., and his colleagues conducted the research. ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency.

Until recently, the primary function of many edge-of-field ditches was to provide a passage for channeling excess water from crop fields. Many farmers controlled ditch vegetation with trimming or dredging to eliminate plant barriers that could impede the flow of runoff.

But in one of Moore's first studies, he evaluated the transport and capture of the herbicide atrazine and the insecticide lambda-cyhalothrin for 28 days in a 160-foot section of a vegetated agricultural drainage ditch in Mississippi. One hour after he started a simulated runoff event, 61 percent of the atrazine and 87 percent of the lambda-cyhalothrin had transferred from the water to the ditch vegetation. At the end of the ditch, runoff pesticide concentrations had decreased to levels that were generally non-toxic to downstream aquatic fauna....

USDA photo: ARS ecologist Matt Moore has found that vegetated drainage ditches can be a low cost way for farmers to capture pesticides and excess nutrients in runoff from fields.

Declining air pollution levels continue to improve life expectancy in US

A press release from the Harvard School of Public Health: A new study led by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) has found an association between reductions in fine particulate matter and improved life expectancy in 545 counties in the U.S. from 2000 to 2007. It is the largest study to date to find beneficial effects to public health of continuing to reduce air pollution levels in the U.S.  The study appears in the December 3, 2012 online edition of the journal Epidemiology.

“Despite the fact that the U.S. population as a whole is exposed to much lower levels of air pollution than 30 years ago—because of great strides made to reduce people’s exposure—it appears that further reductions in air pollution levels would continue to benefit public health,” said lead author Andrew Correia, a PhD candidate in the Department of Biostatistics at HSPH.

The study looked at the effects on health of fine particulate matter, small particles of 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter—referred to as PM2.5. Numerous studies have shown associations between acute and chronic exposure to fine particle air pollution and cardiopulmonary disease and mortality. Studies have also shown that reductions in air pollution are associated with reductions in adverse health effects and improved life expectancy. Air pollution has been declining steadily in the U.S. since 1980, but the rate has slowed in the years since 2000. The HSPH researchers wanted to know whether the relatively smaller decreases in PM2.5 levels since 2000 are still improving life expectancy.

Controlling for socioeconomic status, smoking prevalence, and demographic characteristics, the results showed that a decrease of 10 micrograms per cubic meter (10 μg/m3 ) in the concentration of  PM2.5 during the period 2000 to 2007 was associated with an average increase in life expectancy of 0.35 years in 545 U.S. counties.

The research expanded on a 2009 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine by some of the same authors (Pope, Ezzati, and Dockery) that found that reduced air pollution was associated with increased life expectancy in 211 urban counties. This new study looked at more recent data, more than two-and-a-half times as many counties, and included both rural and urban areas. The findings showed that there’s a stronger association between declining air pollution and increased life expectancy in more urban, densely populated areas than in rural areas. The results also suggested that reduced levels of air pollution may be more beneficial to women than to men….

A double air inversion over Los Angeles, from the EPA

Satellites used to track global smog level

Space Daily via UPI: Israeli researchers say using a trio of NASA satellites has allowed them to measure levels of air pollution over the world's largest cities.

On-the-ground monitoring stations do not always provide the most accurate picture of global smog created by traffic, industry and other human activities, they said.

Using eight years of data collected by the satellites, the researchers at Tel Aviv University tracked pollution trends for 189 cities where the population exceeds 2 million.

More than 50 of these metropolitan areas, including New York, Tokyo and Mumbai, have populations that exceed 5 million.

The researchers used data gathered by three aerosol-monitoring satellites, called MODIS-Terra, MODIS-Aqua, and MISR, which NASA launched from 2000 through 2002....

Smog over China, from a NASA shot