Anthropic activities

Arsenic pollution can be originated in anthropic activities (mining, use of biocides, wood preservers). However, most pollution is natural, coming from mineral dissolution in surface or groundwaters (Bundschuh et al., 2000, 2004 Litter, 2002). Predominant As forms in natural ground and surfacewaters (neutral pH) are arsenate (As(V), as H2AsO and HAsO ) and arsenite (As(III), as neutral H3ASO3). The mobility of arsenical forms in waters is very dependent on pH, Eh conditions, and presence of different chemical species (Smedley et al., 2002). Consequently, removal methods... 

Atmospheric acidity is one of the atmospheric events to which great attention has been paid namely in the last decade when it has been realiz .d that anthropic activity was able to affect substantial parts of the global atmosphere. The increase of the concentration of carbon dioxide from approximately 300 ppm by the turn of the century to a level of about 340 ppm at present, the haze formed over industrialized areas, easily recognized from aircraft and satellite observations, and the long range transport of air pollutants as well as the effects of the acidification of the precipitation are now well documented. It is theferore of great importance to evaluate the causes which determine atmospheric acidity, how it can be estimated and its impact upon the environment. 

Initially, a low volume system was installed at Skua Lake, but this was changed in 1991-1992 to match the high volume air samplers around the station. The data from Skua Lake indicated that the site had become affected by anthropic activities. Thus, it was decided to have a new reference site at Campo Icaro situated about 2000 m S from the main camp and 20 m asl. From the 1994-1995 a high volume air sampler of the same type as all the others was installed there. 

It is expected that the people have to live together for several years to come with plastic manufactures of broad use as they are nearly unsubstitutable, and permeate, with growing impact, all the types of anthropic activities which are expected to expand as a consequence of the worldwide population increase (Fig. 14.2). 

Availability of Biomass from Spontaneous Species The recent poUcy for protecting fragile ecosystems is based on the balancing of natural elements and anthropic activities. In this context, the prospective trend of a further enlargement of protected areas will increase the potential supply of heterogeneous and low-cost biomass. Environmental services devoted to the maintenance of these ecosystems will also be conceived to supply a consistent quantity of raw materials at a very low cost. 

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) constitute a very important class of water pollutants because of their persistence in addition, many of them are suspected of being carcinogenic. There are about 60 VOCs, including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes ( BTEX compounds ), halomethanes, and haloethanes. The presence of some of them in water is due to anthropic activities, for example, the use of chlorinated solvents in industries and laundries, and the formation of halomethanes as by-products of water disinfectants. With respect to Italian law DL 31/01, the maximum allowable concentration (threshold) for the sum of trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene concentrations in drinking water is 10 ppb, whereas the minimum account for the sum of a set of four halogenated compounds, namely chloroform, bromoform, bromodichloromethane, and chlorodibromomethane must be as low as possible and must not exceed 30 ppb. Note that 30 ppb is equivalent to 30 Tg L-i. 

It should, however, be remembered that there are aquatic systems where alkalinity is not solely due to the presence of carbonate species, e.g., seawater/ aqueous solution derived from anthropic activities. For seawater therefore the alkalinity would be more accurately represented by eqn [10] ... 

Mobilization of arsenic in the environment arises either by the natural oxidation of arsenic-bearing sulphosalt minerals or from anthropic activities... 

Although it is still difficult to establish clear cause effect relationships, it is widely accepted that chemical pollution contributes for antibiotic resistance dissemination [10, 33, 34]. There are evidences that antibiotic resistance increase is related with environmental pollution and anthropic pressures. In this respect, antibiotics seem to be a major, although not the unique, form of pollution, mainly because it is estimated that about 75% of the antibiotics consumed by humans and animals are eliminated as active substances [35, 36]. In the environment, antibiotics can suffer adsorption, photolysis or biodegradation, reaching very low concentrations [37]. Nevertheless, at sub-inhibitory levels, as they are found in the environment, antibiotics can promote several alterations on housekeeping functions of the cells. Apparently, some of these alterations are not associated with antibiotic resistance. Even though, they contribute for the perturbation of the microbial community, leading, eventually, to an overall resistance increase [1, 34, 38]. 

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