According to the recent publications ,the nanomaterials will be main topic of interest (in environmental monitoring). Just take a look in the Horizon 2020 EU strategy where Nanomaterials will be one of the most priority research areas (millions of € will be allocated to this topic)! Regards

I agree, that you can indicate on nanomaterials as a major concern in environmental monitoring in the coming years. Also access to financing in connection with the European Union's priorities - outlined in the previous expression - is not without significance.

In other areas of environmental analysis, probably will not be stagnation. Personally, I curiously watch the rapidly increasing amount of publications on the new forms of plant protection products, apparently very effective in action. These works are located at the border of "green pesticides" and "green ionic liquids". It is likely, that if will be proved their superb performance, and better biodegradation of residues in the environment, it can be a global trend to replace a whole range of previously used, toxic pesticides, by them. This topic may be of interest to many scientists from environmental monitoring.

Andrzej, in my rather long experience, " from time to time we can observe a massive interest of the research groups to ".... you name it, I'll take it. A real interest? A transient fashion? Funding? A more or less noble competition? All of those and perhaps something else. Then, after a not very long period, this "massive interest" shifts toward some other problem.

I am not entitled to tell it about any other sciences but in toxicology and related sciences (environmental and occupational monitoring, epidemiology, risk assessment) it was and seeminfly still is so. It seems to be uncontrollable and so hardly predictable.

Being, by the way, a nano-toxicologist, I undersand all the urgency of developing reliable methods of monitoring both as old as the world ultrafine particles in ambient air and nanoparticles (either engineered or, even more ubiquitous, "natural" byproduct of a lot of technologies) in the workroom air. Nevertheless, it will be too bad if, for the sake of all factors listed above, we'll lost interest in studying and monitoring (not only in air but in soil, vegetation, agricultural produce and so on) many "old" environmental pollutants still gathering the greatest harvest of adverse health effects, most serious ones included: lead, arsenic, cadmium, PM2.5, NO2, SO2 etc, etc.

Boris

Thank you very much for joining the discussion, and a very interesting statement.

As a person that proposed the issue for discussion, I left this question open as far, as this can be done, suggesting only, what I would like to talk. By asking the question, I saw the "two sides of the coin", just like you.

In my opinion, we are not able to come up with all the stimuli that can guide scientists toward the specific topics, and in addition - what I totally agree with you - sometimes they can be a questionable stimulus.

Passing over it, I want to emphasize, that for me the most important in the constant search (for various reasons) the new and attractive research themes, is that science, and through the application of her results - all of us, in the end gain.

In fact, this can be worrying, that most funding of science is not going towards to actual needs, but towards the attractive projects. In this situation, it's likely that for such important and pivotal studies, as the environmental pollution and hazards to human health by the traditional pollutants, just not enough neither money nor scientists willing to take up the subject.

Oui, c'est la vie (malheureusement).

C'est la vie (malheuresment)

Is a fact that "nano" is a "sexy" subject. Nevertheless it´s very relevant to understant how nanomaterials can interfere with the ecossystems and the living organisms (and ourselves!). But, I thing that metals, metalloids and other contaminats will continue to be key in ecotoxicological studies. I was also wondering if researchers focused their attention to the impact of antibiotics or other xenobiotics that are usually present in aquatic/marine systems and that can directly interfere with organisms behavior and human health. This topic is very important and some studies have been made, however very few comparatively to the amount of drugs that can be discarded for instance through sewage. Just ideas... :)

Roberto

I think that, like Boris, you pay attention to the diversity of the issues which are to be solved in the field of environmental monitoring. I totally agree, that "traditional pollutants" will be (should be) at the top spot of interest also in the coming years. But, all that is new, in an irresistible manner attracted and tempted to do just that addressed. Hence had come the "five minutes" for nanoparticles, as well as medicaments (especially hormone).

I think, there is one very important area, about which it actually does not talks so much, as it deserves, but I think it will be very important in the future. Due to the increasing number of the world's population, it will be important to protect food resources. In this context, it seems, that a lot of manpower will going in the monitoring of marine and oceanic waters, and protecting them from the most dangerous pollutants, in order to maintain the quality necessary to balance the global demand for food. Without the resources of the sea unless balancing the demand for food will be impossible.

Roberto, Boris and others

What do you think about this?

Dear Andrzej, I believe you are right but, having no personal experhiebce in this field of research (unlike those I wrote about previously) I am not equipped for discussing this matter,

Dear Boris,

I agree that nanoparticles will stay a topic in air monitoring, possibly moving from mass to particle surface and particle number (like in asbestos monitoring). More focus might be given to surface chemistry. Continuing urbanization necessitates air monitoring, but THE EU FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME FOR RESEARCH AND INNOVATION (2014-2020) puts a focus also on climate and on resource efficiency and raw materials, including the marine ecosystem.

If you give me your e-mail-address, I could send you the full paper on Health Impact Assessment on the Benefits of Reducing PM2.5 Using Mortality Data From 28 European Cities.

Dear Manfred, my addresses are still the same:

Professor Boris A. Katsnelson, MD, DSc,

A Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation

Head, Dept of Toxicology & Bioprophylaxis,

Medical Research Center for Prophylaxis and Health

Protection in Industrial Workers

30 Popov Str, Ekaterinburg 620014 Russia

Tel 007-343-3717-721; fax 007-343-3717-740;

Cell +7-922-126-30-90 ;

e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected];

[email protected]

As to environmental pollution monitoring, I think that it should not be too focused on ambient (even plus indoor) air. For POPs and toxic metals (that are always persistent!) soil and food are much more important, while some relevant problems in this field are being solved rather negligently. May I refer you and other colleagues to an article on this matter I'v recently added to my "contributions"

I mean this: Assessment of exposure to toxic metals through food with reference to some towns in Russia (by Boris Katsnelson, SV Kuzmin, TV Mazhayeva, AN Lavrentyev, LI Privalova, OL Malykh) J. Environm. Sci. & Engineering, USA. 01/2010; 4(4):53-61. Full text is available

Dear Boris,

Here in Austria the largest air pollution problem is still indoors from tobacco smoke (see www.aerzteinitiative.at), but I agree with you completely that on a global scale POPs and heavy metals in the food chain are a persistent threat to be monitored.

Dear Boris and Manfred

I must admit that with interest and will happily I follow your substantive exchange of views on "the future of environmental monitoring." My feelings are similar - POPs and metals in the environment - are two of the biggest problems, affecting the health societies.

I wonder if you - like me - you have a feeling that the things related to global environmental threats have long ceased to be a purely scientific problems. On the one hand, it can a good thing, but on the other hand, sometimes I get a little "mixed feelings" when I think about the fact, that alarms raised by scientists are often just not the most important addition to the strategic policy decisions, from where it really depends on whether some lethal substances disappear from the use or not. In recent years, watching this process in the case of alkylphenol ethoxylates, and I see, that various lobbies have more clout than the voice of scientists, unfortunatelly.

Andrzej: encore une fois, c'est la vie... Still, look behind in a longer retrospective: who asked environmental scientists when making political or economical decisions some 80 or even 60 years ago? Were there many scientists concerned enough to give their voice? Thus perhaps we should not be too pessimistic (although I think that to be too optimistic is more dangerous)

ground water play a important role in coming years. most of the cities are located in coastal areas may face sea water intrusion problem because of increasing urbanization.fresh groundwater aquifers may be effected. interface boundaries between fresh and saline are important. Irregular rain conditions and overburden may cause to increase the water table depths may cause water rock interaction and thus require to study pollutants like Arsenic,F, NO3 and various metallic trace elements etc.

Dear Virendra

Of course, you're right, that the issue of the possible contamination of groundwater by the chemical species from seawater is very important, especially for the highly urbanized coastal metropolis.

It is worth noting that recently beginning to appear more and more publications signaling the reverse, a very dangerous effect. In coastal marine waters growing the concentration of hazardous chemicals, flowing into them as a result of high urbanization and the emergence of powerful coastal metropolis. Among other things, are determined increasingly higher drug residues in coastal marine waters. I think that this problem will be also in the coming years in the spotlight of environmental monitoring.

Andrazaj, Thanks, appreciate your views about the forthcoming problems.

Globally, the overall problem is air pollution, without ebargo each country has its own environmental problems according to their technological development ... in my country foreign multinationals have the monopoly on gold mining using mercury, the problem for the world is that my country, exports foods that are irrigated with water contaminated mercury and chromium 6,and studies show that although initially the concentrations are not lethal, is presented bioaccumulation, so the problem is exacerbated. In Latin America, in addition to the air pollutants, heavy metals are going to be an issue of vital importance, especially for free trade treaties.

Dear Daniel, above any doubts there are inter-countries differences in particulars but, as I've already stressed, the heavy metals contaminating soil and/or water and further on - nutrition chains is one of GLOBAL priority problems. Mind you that while decreasing industrial atmospheric emissions is not a simple but still solvable problem, and within the lifespan of one generation many countries managed to decrease significantly ambient air pollution, the persistent toxic contamination of soils and water sediments was rather increasing. The keyword is "persistent": even if industry stops polluting Environment the problem will remain for centuries if not forever. I am afraid that rather soon just the monitoring of this pollution will be obligatory for choosing areas permitted for dwelling, for agriculture etc.

Hello all, really great comments thus far, I agree there are a lot of issues and options!

I feel that affordable environmental monitoring is the key today and that making sensors more available to everyone will add to our understanding of the environment. One example of this is using external VOC and CO2 sensors with phones and tablets to do mobile data acquisition. With solar power a dedicated mobile device (e.g., phone) can be left in the field to do remote environmental monitoring, e.g.: http://www.valarm.net/blog/remote-environmental-monitoring-to-assess-biodiversity-bees-nest-cell-construction/ .

Additionally, using an external USB VOC sensor along with sensors like GPS on phones this environmental data can be collected in real-time, e.g., air pollution and volatile organic compounds: http://www.valarm.net/blog/air-quality-study-with-valarm/ .

Cheers,

Edward.

Edward

thank you very much for your voice in the discussion.

Analyzing your point of view, and comparing with the previously spoken comments in this topic, I can say that the future of effective environmental monitoring is in combine the efforts of specialists in many fields .

I think, everyone of us ( previous speakers in this discussion ) are knowledgeable about what's possible by development of electronics, mobile communications and related fields . However, only a joint effort of specialists from "chemical", "medical" and "technical" environmental monitoring should give the best effect.

With regard to the use of such global monitoring devices as sensors in everyday use devices (mobile phones ), I have such fear, that most regions of the world will not be for many years yet ready to implement solutions from a purely human (awareness or cultural) reason. Even if started now with efforts toward public education, for the positive effect we would need to wait perhaps a lot of years.

I do not want, that this topic slowly began to fade , because it seems they have not yet touched on at least some potentially important future-problems.

I think one of them is the "Great Pacific Garbage" .

Mentioning about this problem it seems to me, that in this case we are dealing with the problem on of at least two globally significant levels. The first of them, is the mere fact, that a huge mass of solid waste contaminated oceans. The second plane, then these solid wastes as a source of chemicals entering the ocean waters and polluting them on a scale never previously encountered.

I think, it's also a great challenge near future. In my opinion, we will be mainly interested in this phenomenon in the context of ocean pollution by the following chemicals: oil derivatives, hormonal drugs, endocrine substances, pesticides, surfactants and heavy metals.

I've included a link to images strongly influence on the imagination:

http://uk.images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=yfp-t-702&va=Great+Pacific+Garbage

Dear William

Thank you for your interesting voice, enriching the discussion.

I agree with argument uttered by you, that demographic problems may hinder much systematic environmental monitoring and health in the future.

It is possible that a broader preventive actions will be carried out to counter the threat of for example: heavy metals, air pollution, endocrine substances and perhaps some of the other most common harmful factors. However, other actions may actually have to be done "on the fly", depending on the situation - particularly in areas highly vulnerable to unpredictable environmental problems, with the highest demographic solstice.

In coming years the main pollutants for monitoring may be suspended particulate materials in air and toxic trace elements in water. The main reason will be increasing urbanization and depleting of water table.

Dear Virendra

I agree with you, that one of the key problems in the future may be air pollution by dust and other suspended solids.

The official governments reports predicted, that large agglomerations will be many times more than it is now exposed to increased smog.

I wonder if these projected fears of growing threats by smog, are directly connected only by increasing threat of higher concentrations of suspended solids? Maybe some of the gaseous components, accompanying smog, may be to human health at least as dangerous?

Sulfur, primarily in the vicinity of fossile fuel power plants, as well as dust in the air , slag which origin from coal combustion etc. In my country, a few plants for flue gas desulphurization are in building phase, as well as treating the ash by water (high density hydromixture )...

According to WHO the key air pollutants in Europe are PM2.5, NO2, O3, carbonaceous particles, secondary aerosols and transition metals outdoors. Indoors a larger variety of pollutants needs to be monitored, especially allergens and carcinogens. In Central Europe tobacco smoke is still dominating disease from indoor pollution: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236660439_Failure_of_Tobacco_Control_in_Central_Europe

Article Failure of Tobacco Control in Central Europe

Andrzey, Manfred, you are 100% right.. and gaseous air pollutants are dangerous too. However - at any rate as concerns respiratory outcomes - all the epi study taking into account both gaseous and particulate components (ours included) seem to have shown that adverse impact of PN2.5 a n d PM10 prevailed. Of course after confoundig by smokig (even passive) and housing conditions has been eliminated.

Andrzej, Thanks for your appreciation. I am also agreed with your suggestions.

with regards.

Dear Andrzey, dear Manfred, when I mentioned "epi study taking into account both gaseous and particulate components (ours included)" I kept on mind our rather old study results of had been published but in Russian or had been hidden in several PATY project's papers based on meta-analysis. Now I've posted in my Contributions as a dataset a short version of our research report - did you notice it? By the way, thank you Andrzey for upvoting several publications of mine.

Ljudomir

As you mention the problems with coal-fired power stations will disappear with the growing use of deSOx, highly efficient filtration and ecologically controlled use of slag/collected fly-ash. Actually the slag is quite inert as an often glassy substance from which the toxics are not (easily) leached.

Dear Harry: (1) it was demonstrated long ago (sorry but I cannot give the relevant reference immediately) that toxic metals are concentrated mostly in surface layers of a fly-ash particle; (2) leaching negligible as concerns material balance can be more than enough for damaging cellular membranes and biomacromolecules (thus to make this particle cytotoxic, genotoxic and so on); (3) chemical inertness of a bulk substance does not necessary testify to its specific biologic inertness in particulate form - remember e.g. quartz (hardly not the most inert mineral) and one of the most heavy lung diseases caused by quartz particles (silicosis); (4) it is proved by epi studies galore that exposure to ambient air fine and ultrafine particles of whatever chemical composition is associated with a lot of nonspecific adverse health effects mediated via multistage mechanisms (even if still under discussion). Ergo: inerntness of bulk slag may be good for territories of its storing and disposal but not for people breathing the air polluted with fly-ash.

Boris

I was referring to the slag not to the ash. You are right in fly ash there is surface enrichment of toxics like arsenic and it is there in free form. I like to mention that I did research on the emissions of these elements at coal-fired stations and that colleagues of mine at my institute (ECN) are world experts on leaching of metals and standard methods of assessment of the leachability.

Dear Boris

Of course, I saw the text yesterday added by you "Short report on Russian study included into the PATY project". Just yesterday - probably the first person interested in this text, as soon as you added him - I downloaded the pdf file on my computer.

I personally think that the problems of air pollution - by solid and gaseous components - are still treated less seriously than the problems of contamination of soils, and especially water.

I also have to admit, that my "allergy" to contaminating the atmosphere by gases, began when I personally saw what in the environment may do such ill-advised and poorly managed industrial production. I still have before my eyes Polish coal basin in Upper Silesia and the ravages of the environment (and people health) in the area of ​​coking plants and coal gasification plant. However, perhaps even more I have in memory the views from the surrounding area of carbon disulphide factory, acting many years ago in Poland. This pictures really do not to tell.

Dear Harry, some misunderstanding was due partly to your "slag/collected fly-ash" and partly to the fact that there is some overlapping of terms slag and ash. If one speaks about byproducts of power stations burning соal, how would you differentiate berween slag an ash (not fly ash)? You see, for instance, the Russian technical term ШЛАКООТВАЛ (verbatim: a place for slag disposal) is translated by vocabularies as "ash disposal area".

And please forgive my lecturing. Even if I told nothing new for you as a specialist, still perhaps somebody will benefit from it.

I agree with Boris, that there are no "inert" particles if respirable (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3204694). They carry PAH, heavy metals, radicals, etc. on their surface deep into the lung and even into the blood stream. Especially the unsoluble ones cause chronic inflammation and long term health effects. We are just beginning to understand the importance of non-fibrous particle surface.

Those who read Russian may find a more detailed presentation of the same epi study of ours in the Chapter 2 of the monograph on Environmental Epidemiology by Privalova, Katsnelson e.a. posted on my ResGate profile. Besides I'll send gladly a Russian journal paper based on the same study if given your e-mail address.

Boris

With pleasure and interest I will read this publication in Russian, about which you wrote in the last post.

Probably you guess, that reading and understanding the Russian for me it's not bad (unfortunately, speaking in Russian is much worse ...).

Did you send me this publication by ResearchGATE mailbox?

Thank you in advance.

Andrzej, the monograph on Environmental Epidemiology by Privalova, Katsnelson e.a. has been posted as one of "contributions" on my ResGate profile for anybody wishing to download it, but sending the paper I mentiioned, i'd like to have an e-mail address of yours. Mine is [email protected]

I checked - it works:

Глава 2.ЭКОЛОГО-ЭПИДЕМИОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ АНАЛИЗ ИНДИВИДУАЛЬНЫХ

И ЭКОЛОГИЧЕСКИ ОБУСЛОВЛЕННЫХ ФАКТОРОВ РИСКА

РАЗВИТИЯ ХРОНИЧЕСКОЙ РЕСПИРАТОРНОЙ ПАТОЛОГИИ

У ДЕТЕЙ НА ОСНОВЕ СПЕЦИАЛЬНОГО ВОПРОСНИКА

Одной из особенностей современной экологической эпидемиоло-гии является то, что многие её подходы направлены на выявление зависимости здоровья населения не только от факторов природной окру-жающей среды, но и от многообразных социально-экономических, се-мейных, бытовых и т.п. факторов риска. Учесть эти зависимости необ-ходимо, когда перед исследованием стоит задача доказательства связи заболевания с влиянием, например, загрязнения атмосферного возду-ха пылевыми частицами или газами, поскольку это доказательство требует элиминации влияния информационных помех – так называе-мых конфаундеров. Однако количественная оценка роли таких сопутст-вующих факторов риска важна и сама по себе, поскольку эффективная профилактическая стратегия должна быть направлена на управление всеми ими в той мере, в какой они в принципе управляемы, а не только указанным загрязнением. Мы рассмотрим эту проблему на примерах изучения факторов риска хронической респираторной патологии у де-тей (в данной главе) и нарушений психологического развития детей, связанных с хронической свинцовой экспозицией (глава 3).

... and so on.

Dear Andrzej: the article Б.А. Кацнельсон, С.В.Кузьмин, Л.И.Привалова, А.А.Кошелева, С.А.Воронин, О.Л.Малых, В.Д.Фурман ФАКТОРЫ РИСКА РАЗВИТИЯ ХРОНИЧЕСКОЙ РЕСПИРАТОРНОЙ ПАТОЛОГИИ У ДЕТЕЙ МЛАДШЕГО ШКОЛЬНОГО ВОЗРАСТА, ПРОЖИВАЮЩИХ В ГОРОДАХ С НЕОДИНАКОВЫМИ УРОВНЯМИ ЗАГРЯЗНЕНИЯ АТМОСФЕРНОГО ВОЗДУХА was published in Вестник Уральской Медицинской Академической Науки, 2007, №2: 27-37. Unfortunately I've lost the copy and so cannot scan it to post the pdf file among my "cotributions" too, but I'll send you the authentic manusctipt as a word file if you tell me where to. Sorry, but I do not know how to use the ResGate mailbox.

Boris

@slag and ash

You were right that I should have made the distinction between slag and ash. Slag has a glass-form in which toxics are encapsulated. At somewhat lower temperatures the residue is ash which has a solid structure. This material is somewhat porous and thus more leachable. However slag and bottom ash are formed in high temperature processes in which many toxics are volatile. These are carried away with the flue gas and condense onto the fly-ash particles. Therefore the surface of the fly-ash particles is enriched in toxics. In the most modern installations almost all fly-ash particles are collected by the filters. Therefore emissions are minimal. However the fly-ash reamins a problem for disposal/groundwater

This is a simplified view, by the way because there are many ways to burn coal, each with their own fate of the non-combustible material associated with the coal (the "Mineral Matter").

On the margins of our discussion of this topic, how big the potential risk of pollution of the atmosphere can carry harmful gases, I looked (quite briefly) to older volumes of our national journal - Annals of Polish National Institute of Hygiene (in Polish: Roczniki Państwowego Zakładu Higieny).

This confirmed my feeling, that at least on Polish realities, air pollution and their potential impact on human health, were and still are treated more fairly marginal. Still dominated (and was dominated in the past) scientific works on water pollution (including drinking water) and the content of harmful ingredients in food.

Dear Boris

I wrote to you a personal information on RG e-mail, where I gave my email address so you can send me a text about which you wrote in the previous post.

I've done it

Hallo Andrzej ,

with the better and better analysis methods residual metabolized pharmaceutical products are detected in drinking water.

In my opinion also the drastically increase of nano-particles (crossing membranes and brain barriers) might become an issue in the near future. Insurance companies are still very restricted to "protect" mass-nano-fabrication.

Regards

Frank

Frank,

probably you noticed, that about residues of drugs and pharmaceuticals, as well as about nanoparticles, in this topic has already been voiced before.

So, we should probably assume, that these two groups harmful agents will be in the near future on the top of interest of environmental monitoring.

Nanoparticles for all us are a new experience.

However, the example of drug residues can very clearly show how evolved attitude to the group of pollutants as improving analytical techniques and methods. When insensitive methods was allowing only for the determination of drug residues in wastewater, it was said: "treated wastewater does not contain a lot of drug residues, so, surface water cope with self-purification of this residue". When improved analytical methods allowed the determination of drug residues not only in sewage, but also in surface waters, the argument was changed: "nothing terrible, that drug residues are in surface water; modern treatment technologies for drinking water will get rid of these low concentrations".

Unfortunately, more sensitive analytical methods today show the impotence of the best techniques for water treating, showing, that drug residues can be found in drinking water.

I fully agree with you, that the issue of drug residues in water, it will be one of the priority in environmental monitoring area anytime soon. This is especially true, in my opinion, in most urbanized areas, but also in those areas with the least resources of water.

Andrezj,

full agreement to that.

Frank

Frank & Andrzej,

I agree that all routes of exposure to nanoparticles need to be studied, but inhalation seems to be of top interest for environmental monitoring, which needs to be supplemented by biomonitoring after toxicokinetics had been studied in animals and humans. We must not wait to see long-term and latent health effects in humans (like mesothelioma from multiwalled carbon nanotubes), but should learn from ultrafine particles already existent in our environment (e.g. asbestos, diesel soot or freshly generated tobacco smoke). Before letting new engineered nanoparticles escape at the workplace or into the breathing air of consumers, we have to know much more about their surface chemistry and interaction with biological membranes from in vitro and animal experiments (see e.g. http://pubs.healtheffects.org/view.php?id=394, http://www.safenano.org/KnowledgeBase/CurrentAwareness/News.aspx)

Dear Mohammad

Of course, wireless sensors and micro-sensors ensure a quick analysis of contaminants in the future. The problem about which I asked in this topic relates to the potential applications of these sensors. Maybe you have some thoughts on this issue?

Dear Manfred

I agree with your thesis that at the very top concern in the coming years will be air pollution (poison) penetrating to the human organisms by inhalation. Wireless sensors, that have been mentioned in previous posts, seem to be the ideal tool for rapid measurement of gaseous air pollutants. The importance of monitoring these components has been discussed earlier in this topic - next to your comments, also Boris stressed the importance of monitoring the gaseous substances in atmosphere.

It seems - it is my opinion - that much more difficult problem will be reliable monitoring of suspended airborne particles, and nanoparticles in atmosphere.

Most likely, nanoparticles (NPs) can not long remain in the atmosphere intact. Due to internal and external mixing they will first form aggregates, i.e. consolidated, and then covered by other substances that are presented in the atmosphere. Most likely, NPs will be discovered not in isolated form but within of ultrafine particles (UFP). In these circumstances, their detection will be possible, for example, by methods of analytical chemistry, though rather complicated. In this case, monitoring of UFP should precede the monitoring of NPs .

Valery,

I totally agree with you that for NPs as interesting object of environmental analysis in the near future, for now we can speak only mode conjecture.

Everything indicates that this is indeed a very complicated analyte, and probably at this moment we do not know all the problems that come to deal at the time of adoption of systematic environmental monitoring.

The present speculation as to whether NPs will be the center of attention, or not, to a large extent, the results will be verified quite extensively is already implemented toxicological studies. However, many shows - including the results of toxicological investigations - that they indeed are environmental pollutants of a high environmental risk.

Dear Mohammad,

I think you are quite right about Sensor Networking and Wireless micro-sensor networks in the 21st century. And that will be fully implemented for monitoring of UFP and afterwards in the monitoring of NPs. Especially it will be important for unpopulated territories like Arctic and deserts.

Dear Andrzej,

I share your point of view about all complications for near future for NPs adoption to present systematic environmental monitoring, especially in global scale. But example of black carbon (BC) problem solving brightly shows the ways for overcoming.

Dear Professor Andrzej Szymanski,

I also want to divert your attention about 'E-Waste environmental pollution'.

e waste pollutants, nano-particles, ultra fine aerosols, will be on the hit list ! With the advent of IT, I wonder how many of the modern gadgets like i phones, tabs, palm tops, etc are affecting human organs and in how many ways ??

I agree with Afaq and Jaya about E-wast. It's not quite usual but really important factor for human healrh.

I agree that e-waste is already a very serious problem, and in the future can become "inflammatory" global problem.

However, I feel that at this time we are not yet able to determine the scale and scope of the problem, due to the enormous changes in technologies used in the production of e-products on an industrial scale. Constant changes in material technology and in production technology make this area of production difficult to analyze in the perspective of more than a few years.

Dear Professor Andrzej Szymanski,

Moore's law predicted in 1965 that "transistor integrating capability will double in every 18 moths". This prediction turned into reality. Most amazing is the electronic product life has further reduced to less than an year. Now the society is forced to follow the generations of most of the electronic products. Hence the gravity of e-waste is in front of us as future vital issue..

Dear all, I am not an expert in environmental chemistry, but from collegues in the late 80ies/early 90ies I remember that we miss many problematic substances when we talk about e-waste and nanoparticles. Car tires for example produce tons of different chemicals per million people (polymerisation accelerators like mercaptobenzthiazoles) and we all use medical substances of one kind or the other and they escape into the enviroment (eg pain killers, antidepressents not to talk about contraceptives and their metabolites). So I think these should not be overseen in with the advent of new threads.

Everybody is right as all environment pollutants are bad for both Environment and Population.Still, if we are talking about the Future we may hope that technologies polluting the ambient air and water will give place to cleaner ones, that cars will be substituted for with something better for transportation (at least, using other kind of tires), even that chemical and hormonal contraception will be outmoded, and so on. So future generations will hopefully read about all these problems of ours but one in books like we read about small pox or Вlack Death pandemiсs. One problem they'll inherit from us (with interest!) will be the persistent pollution with POPs and toxic metals.

It is really an important and clever question. I will try to answer the question briefly: It is difficult to separate the effect of pollutants on all features on the ground, under the ground and in the air, because it is a cycle. There are old pollution sources such as industry, fires, oil, sewage, organic, non-organic, chemical,medical....etc. There are also new sources of pollution resulted from new technologies, particularly the technology of communication (energy, waves). All these sources interact with our water and food and result in severe and chronic diseases such as cancer. I am afraid that in the coming years new unknown disease may emerge from pollution. The major four spheres (atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere) interact and produce what we insert in them. I think we need to revise our habits and styles of life and consumption.

Dear colleagues,

I believe we have to return to the core of discussion: environment monitoring itself. It is very complicated and fantastically cost procedure at national level first of all. Any pretending new pollution has to be included in current national system for environmental monitoring and must be funded additionally. What new pretending pollution is the best candidate for such huge additional funding? This is a question I think.

Dear Valery,

I admit, of course, you're right. But I feel inner conflict, because I know that such a clear vision of environmental monitoring and its future, which you introduced in the last post, is unfortunately an idealized image.

Of course, the money to organize the monitoring of priority environmental risk factors are needed. However, nothing relieves researchers from the fight for this money. Scientists (doctors, biologists, chemists, toxicologists, and other) have the knowledge (or must it still expand for sufficient level) to indicate the most serious hazards and effectively lobby for the inclusion of their plans by politicians to environmental protection programs and plans.

We are all aware, however, that this is not such an easy task. That's why the more you need a unity of voice in our ranks - for what we're lobbying. Our voice will be all the more important, when the larger group will opt for the common demands. Therefore, should such considerations as in this topic, lead constantly to reach common front in negotiations with the administration about the money which are needed to protect the health and natural resources.

Dear Valery:

I believe that not so looking for new "pretenders" as expanding the state monitoring of the environmental pollution to comparments virtually neglected by it or monitored but sporadically (soil and biota) is a priority indeed.

Mind you, please, that this opinion is based not only on the above mentioned general consideration of generations yet unborn but on my own experience too.

For instance, as an experimenting toxicologist I am sure that airborne ultrafine/nano particles of metals and metal oxides are especially dangerous, while as a researcher in the environmental epidemiology I know that a direct input of ambient air pollution into health risks attributable to toxic metals can be almost negligible as compared with soil/dust and food contamination. Thus if I were asked what to apply funds to, first and foremost: to including ultrafine particles into the list of constantly monitored air pollutants or to creating regional and then national maps of persistent soil contamination with both organic and inorganic toxics, - the second option would be my choice.

For evidence look into my ResGate profile (Contributions).

Dear Andrzej, would "such considerations as in this topic, lead constantly to reach common front in negotiations with the administration about the money which are needed to protect the health and natural resources"? I wonder...

Even among Research Gate members with scores above 95th percentile you can find several specialists in environmental epidemiology and monitoring of high international repute, leaders of some multinational projects and so on. Who beside Manfred Neuberger took part in this discussion? Meantime, it is their voice that would matter for administrations.

Boris,

I totally agree with you. About how they will look in the future legal conditions of health and the environment, certainly will directly decide scientific experts, invited to government advisory groups.

The problem is that unless we all notice that these experts will say "the voice of the scientific community", and not their own voice (probably more subjective than the "collective wisdom" developed in the democratic debate ), only when they will be in connection with their community.

For now, this unity of the scientific community on important issues is far from ideal. It is also no wonder that rarely, where scientists and society are satisfied with the legal solutions in their own countries.

In conclusion - also in relation to our activities on ResearchGATE - we can say pessimistic thesis, that the activity of scientists in promoting the results of their work is far too small and too dispersed. There is a need of increase the activity and greater consolidation of research groups.

This conclusion follows from discussion in several topics in ResearchGATE.

From my experience you can get interest by politicians and funding bodies for new bioindicators if you present some sensation in the media, even if speculative. On the other hand I did not get funding for cotinine screening, which is a well established indicator for active and passive smoking, because politicians were worried that the results could be unpleasant for them (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236660439_Failure_of_Tobacco_Control_in_Central_Europe). Also I suspect that my country did not participate in DEMOCOPHES, because it included cotinine tests in children. For the future I am worried still more, because the conservatives put the ministry of research and science under the control of the minister of economy.

Article Failure of Tobacco Control in Central Europe

I am glad that my remark on the need to recognize the difficulties of funding in research related to environmental monitoring called bright and vivid reaction of the participants of the discussion. Indeed, there exists a significant gap between the scientific community and funding organizations in public, governmental and commercial sectors. However, I would like to remind that primarily scientists should seek to bridge this gap. Par example, the technology for removal of such a gap are presented in Dawn J Wright paper «Bridging the Gap Between Scientists and Policy Makers: Whither Geospatial?» (see Dawn J Wright page on the website RG). I believe we should offer to politicians various decision support system based on the results of our scientific research in the field of environmental monitoring. I am afraid that these part of the way no one to go but us.

I am afraid that both "technology" and psychology of policy making in different countries are too different for practicability of the excellent idea of research groups' consolidation. Anyway, is not the International Scociety for Environmental Indicators and its conferences an appropriate platform for looking for such consolidation or, at least, a consensus?

Manfred,

You write about very important things that are happening in fact, and can not be ignored, on the other hand, this minimizes any chance of pushing through solutions to the levels of government that would be satisfactory from a scientific point of view.

In most countries - as it seems - is dominated by science policy is opportunism and operation "from election to election". Added to this is the lack of professionalism, which often results in the fact that ministries of science, health, or environmental protection, manage ministers "brought in a suitcase" of giving the ruling parties. In this situation, very little can be done - even many expert teams nothing make things happen, if instead of the opinion of the scientific community (based on the outcomes of scientific research), will present a fuzzy cluster of sentences very own members of these teams.

It seems to me, that counting on prudent government decisions for the protection of health and the environment is idealistic vision, similar to the idealistic vision of developed societies, which voluntary resignation from the goods of civilization, which carry the greatest risk to human health and the environment.

Please do not misunderstand my complaint: We have to fight to be heard by decision makers, but also against resignation of experts. Never ever give up!

I think that especially nanoparticles and inhalable particulate matter as both come from different origin and are environmental as well as health hazards. The latter are being monitored while latter is not. Since, latter are known as health hazard and their constituents may be highly toxic chemicals and elements. It is why the latter should be more rigorously be monitored in future and devices should be developed to monitored nanoparticles and screens, masks and other devices must be developed to safeguard against human health.

Manfred,

I'm sorry, if you have an impression that I give other sense of your words - put it on my problems with English. In fact, I am a strong supporter of such an attitude about what you are writing in a recent post. But - in this context - it would be very difficult for me to give some magical way on improve the efficiency of scientific efforts (through expert groups) on legal provisions in line with actual knowledge of the dangers to health and the environment, made on the basis of sound scientific research.

I also realize that my experience - based on the knowledge available to me - on the effects of expert committees working in Poland, for objective reasons probably differ from the experience of similar committees in countries with a long experience of democracy than in Poland. I repeat, however, that overall I am of the opinion that such forcing healthy and environmentally friendly solutions can be effective and is probably one of the better solutions which is available for us.

In Poland, these solutions do not operate satisfactorily so far. I hope that the cause lies only in that the lack of experience of cooperation democratic institutions. In this context, I also hope that in the countries of the "old democracies" the problem looks much better.

In my opinion lead toxicity will be at first due to its effect on children and inturn chemical pollution could be considered next

Dear Ali: in the Contributions of my RG profile please find "Lead and childhood (the Middle Ural experience") as well as some experimental works of ours pertaining to the problem.

Dear Boris

Thank you very much.Effect of Lead toxicity on growth hormone level in children would be subject of my interest.Have dine it

It depends on the region in which we are living. In my opinion particulate matters or air dust, chemical fertilizers and agriculture chemicals are the most important to be considered.

Organophosphates and their potential affect on autism prevalence.

Ali, I agree, increasing urbanisation is a problem for particulate air pollution and the effects of ultrafines from combustion are still to be investigated in epidemiological studies. Agriculture contributes ammonia to sulfates and nitrates and thereby produces ultrafines traveling over large distances, entering rooms and lungs. Another neglected source of particulate pollution is wood smoke. New problems arose from biofuels and from overfertilizing crops, leading to nitrate in drinking water and to N2O, which is a greenhouse gas. So pestizides are not the only problem, why the minister for environment should not be the same person as the minister for agriculture.

Hello,

I think Poly-aromatic hydrocarbons are the one in the coming years, which is main pollutant from natural and anthropogenic sources. Heating, power plants using fossil fuels, industrial process, incineration of industrial and domestic wastes, forest fires, volcanic activity, vehicle exhausts, asphalt pavements, and in general, all incomplete combination at high temperature and pyrolytic processes involving fossils fuels or more generally, materials containing carbon and hydrogen, are major sources of PAHs. Human exposure to PAHs occurs principally by inhalation of tobacco smoke and polluted air, ingestion of contaminated and processed food and water, or by dermal contact with soots, tars and oils. The greatest exposure is likely to take place in the workplace of certain facilities like tar production plants, coking plants, asphalt

production plants, coal-gasification sites, smoke-houses, municipal trash incinerators via air. In air, PAHs may exist adbsorbed on carrier particles or in free state. So, it may be the main subject of interest.

Harpreet, PAH can be genotoxic in traces, but the surface of the carriers decides the carcinogenic dose. Products of pyrolysis are ubiquitous, but it is the high number of particles which makes diesel soot, more carcinogenic than expected from its PAH content.

Dear Prof, In my home country, drug residues in the poultry meat and red meat will be the most dangerous threatening factors in the near future, as most of the owners never care about this matter at all, they just want to fatten their animals for the market and nothing else. TQ

Dear Andrzej, I would add also less obvious contaminants like transgenic food and products, as well as PCBs. With 7 billion people currently living on the planet to feed, we have to be increasingly aware of what is going on and who is taking decisions in this matter that is crucial for our survival and well-being. There's nothing they are leaving untouched: the mustard, the okra, the bringe oil, the rice, the cauliflower. Once they have established the norm: that seed can be owned as their property, royalties can be collected. We will depend on them for every seed we grow of every crop we grow. If they control seed, they control food, they know it – it's strategic. It's more powerful than bombs. It's more powerful than guns. Think, as an example, of transgenic corn (Mexico), rice, cotton (in India), soya (that can all result in transgenic contamination) or the typical GM (genetically modified) bovine somatotropin or somatotrophin (abbreviated bST and BST), or BGH, which is a peptide hormone produced by the cows' pituitary gland. The corporate responsibility of some multinational enterprises refers to the responsibility of some people of the corporation: a corporation cannot be held morally responsible because the corporation cannot act. Monsanto, for example, was founded in 1901 as a chemical company. Its history is intimately linked to the production and promotion of highly toxic chemicals such as Agent Orange (used as a chemical weapon in the Vietnam war) and PCBs (widespread toxic pollutants). Those aspect, I believe, will be one of the main subject of interest for environmental and human health monitoring in the coming years.

Giovanni and Rahman, I agree that food chain control (independent of industry!) will stay an important topic, POPs in particular (see e.g. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10866446). More endocrine disruptors will be discovered, transgenic carcinogens, etc. Companies like Monsanto need control and not free trade treaties. Nevertheless I think that urban air pollutants will stay the main subject of interest for environmental monitoring. Inhaled toxins distribute into the bloodstream quickly and do not pass the liver-filter.

Though generation of pollutants depends on regional conditions and activities, however environmental pollution has no boundaries. Severity of a particular kind of pollution varies from region to region. For example, vehicular emissions are one of the leading causes of air pollution in China, USA, Russia, Canada, Mexico, and Japan. Major stationary pollution sources include chemical plants, coal-fired power plants, oil refineries, petrochemical plants, nuclear waste disposal activity, incinerators, large livestock farms, PVC factories, metals production, plastics factories, and other heavy industry. Some of the more common soil contaminants are chlorinated hydrocarbons (CFH), heavy metals (such as chromium, cadmium--found in rechargeable batteries, and lead--found in lead paint, aviation fuel and still in some countries, gasoline), MTBE, zinc, arsenic and benzene. Ordinary municipal landfills are the source of many chemical substances entering the soil and often groundwater environment, emanating from the wide variety of refuse illegally discarded. Looking to these aspects chemical pollution as well resulting out of the use of synthetic agrochemicals (fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, weedicides, etc.), industrial effluents, improper disposal of domestic/municipal/ hospital (medical) wastes, heavy metals including their nanoparticles causing severe pollution to air, water and soil are the major aspect of concern that need to addressed for mitigation and monitoring strategies.

I will say the following listed chemicals (1-9), but there could be some more. I have also mentioned within brackets whether it should be monitored in water or food or sediments or in fish. However, the priority could vary from country to country and depending upon your objectives of monitoring whether to protect the human health or the environmental health, for example, Arsenic is still a big problem in the Indian subcontinent (Bangladesh) and in Australia, pesticides, EDCs, metals and blue green algal toxins and pharmaceutical being prioritized/monitored (water and sediment monitoring), and there is residue monitoring in place in Australia for meat, seafood, aquaculture products and grains and fruit for most pesticides, metals and antibiotics, in case of Bangladesh, metals being monitored in coastal waters. There is also a need of food chain pathway monitoring/ transfer of chemicals (water-soil-plant-animal-human).

1. Arsenic (still a problem in the Indian subcontinent, China, Vietnam in groundwater, need to be monitored in both groundwater and food such as in rice)

2. Metals (Hg, Cu, Pb, Cd, Ni) (Hg in fish and water, Cd in rice, others in water and sediments)

3. Pesticides, herbicides and fungicides (recently there has been focused on fungicides in Australia but also old pesticides such as DDT since this pesticides still being used in many Asian Countries; other priority pesticides in water, fish and crops)

4. Endocrine disrupting chemicals (Estrone or E1; 17-Ethynylestradiol or EE2, in fish and SWTP effluents, drinking water),

5. Dioxins (PCDDs, PCDFs, PCBs in crops, seafood/fish, human milk, soil/sediment)

6. Pharmaceuticals (effluents, drinking water )

7. Blue-green algal toxins/cyanobacterial toxins (drinking water, fish)

8. Marine toxins (shellfish toxins and finfish toxins) (seafood)

9. Fungal toxins (Aflatoxins in maize)

Fossil -fuel gases are the main pollutants in oil producing countries ,the people nearby those areas suffering from reparation difficulties caused by suspended Ash as an out let from the industrial refining and processing of crude oil ,CO,CO2 and H2S,sometimes forms what we called SMOK (smoke + Fog) resulted from 24 hour of outlet of these gases which also called greenhouse gases .

Most probably the CO and CO2 produced by different factories and chemical Industries or from the exhaust tube of the cars in the cities are the main issue to be considered for environmental monitoring in the early future.

In my home town we are facing breath, skin, throat problems arising due to gases and smoke evolved from chimnies of thermal power plant, pollutants from electricity generation plants are become main pollutants and will arise serious problems to society

Andrzej, I have thought about this problem very deeply. I have also thought about the infinite number of ways that have been attempted to eliminate or at least control by products and pollutants. The thing is this, every time we end up chasing our tails sort of speak. With something like this one has to think out side the box. We have tried to treat chemicals and pollutants with more chemicals that cause waste and pollutants. I propose that we start examining the root causes more closely and choose an alternative methods such as attacking it from an atomic/ sub atomic level using electromagnetic frequency. We should also consider electromagnetic/ cosmic energy. One of the ideas that I have is to create and use centrifuge technology (frequency and vibrational means to separate/ destroy/ neutralize) the particles into singular form. In the last five or six years one of my independent research projects is studying the methods and theories of the late great Nikola Tesla and Sir Royal Rife,. This idea that I have proposed may seem very complex. But, we are all facing a very real complex problem and or danger to our Global Ecosystems which also include the human being. The one thing that scientists leave out is jet streams that leave a residue trail across the skies of the world. (These rain down and wash into the soil which our domestic cattle and wild life consume. We plant our crops in it, pick our vegetables and fruit off the trees, drill down into the aquifiers of the world. Another one that is left out is the so called space fence. Hmmmmm??? (research time) Mother Earth can not take much more of the ill care that she is left to  juggle and balance. It is not just one country I am concerned with. This one affects/ effects us all. I sure could use your help on this. Your perspectives please. You are more experienced in this area than I. I would like to work with you on this one. Anybody???

Now there are a lot of nano-particle pollutants but funding to monitor them are very unclear.