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This volume provides a collection of research findings on the distribution and risk associated with emerging contaminants (ECs) in water and wastewater across the globe, and effective remediation techniques and technologies. The book covers various monitoring techniques for ECs in water and wastewater and its related impacts on the ambient environment, and offers valuable information on cost-effective monitoring techniques and sustainable treatment technologies for ECs. The authors detail the risks and biological effects of ECs and legacy persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in freshwater and marine systems, including their adverse interactions with aquatic organisms, while also discussing the associated impacts on human health. The book comprehensively covers current research outcomes on treatment methods, cost-effectiveness, and infrastructure needs for effective removal of ECs. It will be of interest to students, researchers, and scholars in environmental science and engineering, water and wastewater, toxicology, environmental biotechnology, soil sciences, and microbial ecology.

The aim of the book was to produce the most comprehensive examination of a pandemic that has ever been attempted. By cataloging the full extent of the Zika pandemic, this book will be the most complete history and epistemic contextualization ever attempted to date. The work should function as the primary source for students, researchers, and scholars who need information about the Zika pandemic.This book examines the technical literature, digital and popular literature, and online materials to fully contextualize this event and provide a bona fide record of this event and its implications for the future. It is somewhat serendipitous that while this work was underway, we are going through another pandemic. One of the primary lessons we did not learn by Zika was pandemic events will return repeatedly, and we need to learn from each one of them to prepare the planet for the next one. Just because Zika seemed to have died out does not make it less important. We were lucky that thevirus evolved into what seemed to be a less virulent version of itself, and the vector mosquitoes were concentrated elsewhere. Finally, this book represents a tour de force in scholarship involving nearly 4,000 sources of information and does not shy from a detailed examination of the controversies, conspiracies, and long-term consequences when we avoid learning from outbreaks, such as Zika.

This book details how the water quality of the Blesbokspruit River in Gauteng, South Africa was socially constructed by stakeholders and key individuals in the context of acid mine drainage (AMD) and its treatment. Social constructionism is used as the framing for this research to explain how water is intrinsically social. Findings presented here show that stakeholders are aware that the changes in the physicality of the Blesbokspruit resulted from human interventions and varied uses of the water over the years. Such knowledge, among factors such as the historical context of mining, current coal mining, flows and volumes of water, technology used and processes followed, information and communication, and vested interests influence social constructions of the water quality. What counts as the truth about water varies depending on the individual's perspective, their purpose, and their individual interests. Further, how one defines water quality influences what treatment processes are preferred in order to improve water quality.  The book explains why, for example, a treatment process meant to improve water quality gained a bad reputation by the public because of the South African government's silo approach. The book explains how these social constructions are entrenched in power relations between stakeholders regarding AMD treatment and illustrates how power was used to influence decisions to improve the water quality of the Blesbokspruit. The case presented in this book offers insights and recommendations for policymakers working in water governance, including means to influence social constructions of water quality and ways to clarify roles and responsibilities in pursuit of improved cooperative government.

This book examines the impacts that the COVID-19 lockdown has had on environmental and ecological health, with a focus on coastal ecosystems in the Lower Gangetic Delta. The book begins with an overview of COVID-19's spread and impact before and after the lockdown in the focus region, then addresses the specific impacts that the lockdown period had and continues to have on air quality, marine and estuarine water quality, coastal biodiversity, and the livelihoods of the region's inhabitants, especially those who live below the poverty line. The decrease in human activity combined with the complete closure of various sectors, including air travel, oil and gas drilling, and construction, has had a pronounced effect on biodiversity and overall environmental health that is yet to be fully realized. The book sheds light on these changes and assesses how biodiversity, ambient air quality, and ecosystem functioning will progress as COVID-19 remains a threat and the lockdown persists. The studywill be of interest to researchers, government officials and professionals dealing with disaster management, environmental science, biological science, and health.

This book contains a set of papers which explore the links among climate change, health, and hazards and demonstrate how they interact. It emphasizes the urgency of immediate and more ambitious action to address climate risks. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), human-induced climate change is known to be causing dangerous and widespread disruptions in nature and is affecting the lives of billions of people around the world, despite efforts to reduce the risks. Climate change is also negatively influencing health and is mounting threat to our wellbeing and a healthy planet. The world is also facing significant climate hazards over the next two decades, with global warming expected to soon reach 1.5°C. Even temporarily exceeding this warming level will result in additional severe impacts, some of which may be irreversible. There is therefore a perceived need for publications which may foster a greater understanding of how climate changeconnects to human health and the role played by hazards in this context. It is against this background that this book is being prepared.

This book details the state-of-the-art methodological advances for delineating the toxicology and working mechanisms of nanomaterials, microplastics, fine aerosol particulates (PM2.5) as well as emerging organic pollutants. It also provides latest computational approaches for toxicity prediction and risk assessment of nanoscale materials which possess realistic chances to enter the environment and human organism. Written by leading scientists at the frontiers of environmental science and nanomedicine, this book is intended for both young researchers and experienced professionals working in the fields of environmental protection, human health and occupational safety, nanotechnology, material science and nanomedicine, as well as graduate students majoring in environmental and health sciences.

This book presents the frontier research of toxicology and health risk assessment of chemicals. First, it provides an overview of the current methods of evaluating safety amounts of chemicals and provides a new aspect of the principle of toxicology. Secondly, it shows recent research where the new method of health risk evaluation is adopted, followed by an integrated health risk assessment of chemicals. Finally, it describes the epigenetic inheritance of chemical impact on health throughout several generations. Estimating the safety amount of chemicals surrounding our lives is not sufficient for health risk evaluation, particularly for carcinogenic compounds, endocrine disruptors, and nano materials. The author¿s group has found a family of chemicals linked to ADHD through animal screening and identified its chemical nature using chemoinformatics methods. Based on these new developments, this book proposes to utilize the biomarker common to those chemicals for health risk assessment, independent of exposure routes and physiological dimensions. The book appeals to researchers and students in the field of toxicology, health risk assessment, pharmacology, and public health.

This book, the third in the series Behavior of Radionuclides in the Environment, is dedicated to Fukushima. Major findings from research since 2011 are reviewed concerning the behavior of radionuclides released into the environment due to the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, including atmospheric transport and fallout of radionuclides, their fate, and transport in the soil-water environment, behavior in freshwater, coastal and marine environment, transfer in the terrestrial and agricultural environment. Volume III discusses not only radionuclides dynamics in the environment in the short- and mid-term, but also modeling and prediction of long-term time changes.Along with reviews, the book contains original data and results not published previously. It was spearheaded by the authors from the Institute of Environmental Radioactivity at Fukushima University, established two years after the Fukushima accident, with their collaborators from Japan, Russia, and Ukraine. The knowledge emerging from the studies of the environmental behavior of Fukushima-derived radionuclides enables us to move forward in understanding mechanisms of environmental contamination and leads to better modeling and prediction of long-term pollution effects in general. 

This book discusses the sources, human health hazards and risk prevention strategies associated with aeolian dust particles (fine and ultrafine) in the atmosphere. It covers the challenges of accurately forecasting aeolian dust and the need to raise public awareness on the warning signs and harmful impacts of airborne dust. Also discussed is the presence of microorganisms, heavy metals and other pollutants in dust which contributes to harmful impacts on human health as well as management and treatment options for the various health issues that can result from exposure. The book is a useful resource for scientists, engineers and policymakers interested in dust and health.

Antimicrobial resistance is recognised among the world¿s most challenging problems. Despite its global spread, Africa, specifically sub-Saharan Africa, is the most affected by this malaise. Poor living conditions and inadequate access to sanitation and potable water supplies are among contributing factors that have influenced a high disease burden on the continent, requiring extensive antimicrobials. Weak health systems and the absence of firm policies further aggravate the problem, as the use of antimicrobials is mostly unregulated. The increasing demand for animal protein to meet the starving populations¿ demands has also influenced the use of these antimicrobials, including those banned on other continents, for food animal production. The ripple effect of indiscriminate use in humans and animals is the massive discharge of antimicrobials, their residues, antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms and their associated genes into the environment. This 14-chapter unique masterpiece presents the AMR problem in African, addressing the various compartments of the One Health ¿ humans, animals, and the environment, to illustrate the need for concerted efforts in the fight against AMR, especially in Africa. Authors from the four cardinal points present diverse aspects of AMR in Africa, starting with behavioural and social drivers of AMR in Africa. Antimicrobial stewardship in an African context is also discussed. AMR in humans is presented through studies on antibiotic-resistant neonates and nontyphoidal Salmonella infections and the clinical relevance of the genetics of viral resistance. Topics on AMR in mastitis, biosecurity in animal farming and the linkage between disinfectants and AMR are discussed. The environmental dimension of AMR is discussed, notably in the aquatic environment, and its implication for aquaculture and irrigation and using nanomaterials to treat polluted waters from such environments are highlighted. Finally, Africäs rich floral diversity is portrayed as an eco-friendly and cost-effective approach to combat AMR. Hopefully, the work presented will spur greater collaboration between scientists, environmental, animal and human health practitioners, the general population, and policymakers to assimilate and implement the One Health approach to combating AMR, rather than working in silos on their various sectors

This book focuses on a monograph published in 2017 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an agency of the World Health Organization (WHO), discussing its carcinogen hazard classification of four pesticides: parathion, malathion, diazinon, and tetrachlorvinphos as well as the herbicide glyphosate. The monograph provided a detailed discussion of considerations and conclusions made by a group of experts who met in 2015 to evaluate these compounds. Although not universally true, many of these substances, from the time of their commercial introduction to their present-day use, have spread significantly in the environment, affecting animals and plants in the larger ecosystem, the overall health of the environment, and human health. This book develops each of these issues before turning to the IARC review process, both the general process and its evolution over time, and compound selection criteria and deliberations regarding the substances discussed in the 2017 monograph. Final book sections detail scientific and private sector reactions to and implications of the IARC classifications. Hazard identification is contrasted with various models of quantitative risk assessment. The last chapters highlight the importance of hazard identification for members of domestic and global underserved communities involved in farming and landscape work, where exposures may vary widely, are not well-regulated, and where health outcomes are often not carefully documented.

Eating locally and developing an urban-rural food continuum is a rapidly evolving movement. Integration of multi-functional forms of agriculture - termed New Forms of Urban Agriculture (NFUA) - could be a critical adaptation to strengthen this movement and for the sustainability of cities. While NFUA have the potential to provide diverse benefits to humans, there is an absence of reliable empirical data on the scale and impact of urban resources on NFUA which has a profound impact on its viability and sustainability. In this book, we shift the focus from how NFUA have potential to impact the urban system to investigate the potential impacts of urban resources on NFUA. Access to resources such as land, labour, clean water, etc. are major barriers to enter the agriculture sector in the cities; the chapters in this book present projects or reviews recent research on the subject from different cities in the world. This edited volume offers critical perspectives from diverse disciplines, expertise, and geographic contexts related to the actual and potential role of urban and peri-urban agriculture in the developing and the developed world where forms, adaptations, and debates around NFUA vary distinctively. Using and urban ecology lens, the book provides empirical evidence of how urban resources of land, water/waste, labour, and biodiversity impact NFUA.

This atlas shows the relationship between water pollution and cancer in the Huai River Basin in China over the last 30 years. Drawing on a five-year study conducted by the China Centre for Disease Control (CDC), Professor Gonghuan Yang & Dafang Zhuang present a spatial and longitudinal analysis of regular pollution monitoring and disease surveillance data. A review of variation in trends in the causes of death in the Huai River Basin over the past 30 years shows that precisely those areas which were the most seriously polluted for the longest time were the areas with the highest increase in digestive cancer deaths - several times that of the national average increase for the respective cancers. Spatial analysis shows a high level of correspondence between the seriously polluted areas and areas with high mortality from cancer, the most important finding in the atlas.Dr. Gonghuan Yang is a Professor at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. She serves as Director of the Center of NCD & BRFS of the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Science, Beijing, China. She is an expert on Public Health and an epidemiologist focusing on chronic non-communicable diseases.Dr. Dafang Zhuang is a Professor at the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. He is an expert of geographical information system and its application in correlating public health with environmental changes.

Through an approach strongly oriented to socio-health contexts and healthcare facilities, with multidisciplinary contributions on the methodological and technical aspects, or legislative issues, the book provides tools and design strategies to plan and realize therapeutic places and healing gardens for care, rehabilitation, interaction, and social inclusion. It addresses all the technical and medical professionals - like Architects, Urban Planners, Agronomist, Sociologists, Epidemiologists, Public Health experts, Policy Makers, etc. - wishing to explore the link between built environment, well-being, and health, referring in particular to the direct relationship between places and therapy.

The current coronavirus pandemic fundamentally reshapes existing debates and processes in international development. The unprecedented (and rapidly evolving) crisis is generating a number of substantial challenges for developing economies. Governments in low-income nations often find it extremely hard to cope with the increased demand for health services, make prompt decisions and put them into action, protect vulnerable segments of society and offer immediate relief to affected economic sectors. This book provides a series of reflective chapters that demonstrate how several areas of international development have been severely affected by the Covid-19 outbreak. It provides an in-depth critical discussion on how the current pandemic influences several development outcomes (in the domains of poverty/inequality, health, education, migration, formal/informal employment, (de)globalisation, the extractive sector, climate change, water and the global financial system). Each chapter draws policy recommendations on relevant interventions that can alleviate the identified negative repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic, especially for the most vulnerable communities in the Global South.

This book provides a complete practical guide of processing data in public health with R language. On the basis of the author¿s research and teaching experiences, this book serves either as a textbook for undergraduates and graduates in public health or as a tutorial for self-learning. Many first-hand examples are presented with source data, R scripts, and graphs, as well as detailed explanations, which could be easily reproduced by readers so as to better understand the data processing principles and procedures. Popular and novel R packages in public health are introduced as well.

Wastewater-based Epidemiology for the Assessment of Human Exposure to Environmental Pollutants discusses wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) and its use in risk assessment and monitoring of human exposure to hazardous pollutants and pathogens. The book explores the health impacts of organic and inorganic pollutants from pesticides, heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, phthalates, personal care products, and endocrine disruptors in the wastewater environment. The book examines the application of wastewater-based epidemiology in determining health risk and exposure to infectious diseases caused by viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2, parasites, and bacteria. Other topics include detection techniques, sampling techniques, analytical methods, biomarkers, and the use of biosensors in wastewater-based epidemiology studies.

This book covers the research fields in biodiversity conservation, the Belt and Road eco-environmental cooperation, China's five-year plan for eco-environmental protection, sustainable development goals assessment, and human health loss assessment. In the past, these achievements have played an important scientific role in supporting China's ecological and environmental protection, and produced extensive social impacts and significant environmental benefits. At the same time, the relevant research ideas and methods also show the latest progress and trend in the field of environmental strategy and planning in China in recent years, which can be used for reference by experts and scholars of other countries in the field of ecological environment.

This book provides extensive information on the chemicals that inhabit our environment, our food, our water and our air and the impact that they may be having on human health. The author is a medical scientist, with training in the law. The book documents current understanding about pesticides in food, the plastics revolution, toxic metals, air, water and electronic waste pollutants, chemical exposure in the workplace, radiation pollutants, chemical exposure and hearing loss, how our bodies deal with chemicals, genetic variability and the risk of disease, the effect of chemicals on genes, mitochondria and the immune system and what we can do about it all. Industrialisation has resulted in many thousands of chemicals, which are being continuously developed and often escaping from where they are used into our human environment, without us really knowing enough about them. In high dosages or with continuous small dosage, the evidence suggests, that many of them couldinterfere with human health and some of them are known to be doing so. But for the vast majority, we are left wondering whether some could be responsible for some diseases the causes of which are inadequately understood. Every chapter is thoroughly reinforced with several pages of references from the peer-reviewed literature.

This book characterizes the major pollution patterns of emerging contaminants, such as sources, emission effluents, temporal and spatial distributions, multi-media transportation and transformation processes, exposure pathways to ecosystems and humans, and ecological risks. Based on this, it establishes an urbanizing region management concept and highlights how urbanization and its regional ecology have evolved into a more integrated vision. It also decouples the relations between urbanization and emissions of emerging pollutants that are framed within a broad socio-ecological context considering institutions, policies, and governance. All the theory, methods, and case studies have been taken from the authors¿ publications, which have undergone rigorous international peer review. The book presents the spatial distribution, pathways, and flow diagrams of the pollutants as well as the interactions between urbanization and regional pollution and includes detailed figures and pictures. It also investigates ecological risk characterization and expression using maps based on geographic information systems to illustrate the general profile and the spatial variation of risks.The book is a valuable resource for postgraduates, researchers, academics, environmental NGOs, and regional managers such as urban planners, environmental agency staff, legal regulators, and decision makers. Bridging the gap between environmental science and policy, it offers interdisciplinary theory, approaches, and case studies that facilitate applications of frontier science in ecology and environmental science to regional social and economic development.