It is also suggested that clear guidelines be prepared for technical liability allocation. There was also a felt need to quantify remediability to make the remediation liability allocation easier.The occurrence of pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs in water resources is widely documented in Europe, North America and Asia. However, in South America, these studies are still incipient. The objective of this study was to screen and identify the presence of pharmaceuticals of various therapeutic classes, including illicit drugs such as cocaine and its metabolite benzoylecgonine, in urban drainage channels that flow into the bathing waters of Guarujá city, State of São Paulo, Brazil. Moreover, the ecological potential risks to the aquatic biota were also assessed. The water samples were collected from four beaches of Guarujá in two different points in the urban drainage channels and in the nearby coast line. A total of 16 compounds were detected using liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry carbamazepine (0.1-8.0 ng/L), caffeine (33.5-6550.0 ng/L), cocaine (0.2-30.3 ng/L), benzoylecgonine (0.9-278.0 ng/L), citalopram (0.2-0.4 ng/L), acetaminophen (18.3-391.0 ng/L), diclofenac (0.9-79.8 ng/L), orphenadrine (0.2-1.5 ng/L), atenolol (0.1-140.0 ng/L), propranolol (limit of detection LOD-0.9 ng/L), enalapril (2.2-3.8 ng/L), losartan (3.6-548.0 ng/L), valsartan (19.8-798.0 ng/L), rosuvastatin (2.5-38.5 ng/L), chlortalidone (0.1-0.4 ng/L) and clopidogrel (0.1-0.2 ng/L). The hereby data also showed that five of these compounds, namely caffeine, acetaminophen, diclofenac, losartan and valsartan, could raise moderate to severe risks to aquatic organisms (algae, crustaceans and fishes). This study is the first report of the occurrence of several pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs in urban drainage channels that flow to the bathing waters in South America, and it is the first quantification of rosuvastatin, chlortalidone and clopidogrel in environmental marine waters of Latin America.A comprehensive study of 58 groundwater samples collected in the virgin area of Wanaparthy watershed (1600 km2), Telangana, India, to assess the hydrochemistry, quality, water types and potability using hydrogeochemical characterization, WQI and GIS technique. Major ions concentration of Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+, Cl-, F-, NO3- and SO42- in groundwater were analysed using ion chromatography (IC). Physicochemical values of the potential of hydrogen (pH), total dissolved solids (TDS) and electrical conductivity (EC) were determined using Hanna portable meters, while total hardness (TH), alkalinity and bicarbonates are estimated by titrimetric methods. Results obtained enlighten the major anions and cations, which are found in order of Cl- > HCO3- > SO42- > NO3- > F- and Na+ > Ca+2 > Mg+2 > K+ respectively. Among various ions measured, fluoride (18.97%), chloride (3.44%), nitrate (8.62%), sulphate (5.17%), sodium (34.48%) and calcium (1.72%) were found to above acceptable limit values of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for drinking purposes. According to Piper trilinear diagram, two dominant hydrochemical facies, Na-Cl-SO4 and Ca-Na-HCO3 types, were identified. Gibbs diagram imparted the dominancy of samples in the territory are rock-water reaction and evaporation dominance. WQI shows 67.79% of samples pertain to the excellent to good water types reveal fit for drinking. Drainage pattern enumerated the concentration of the parameters measured are exceeding towards the downstream region, which might be due to the chemical reaction of rock-water interaction (infiltration and recharge). As the groundwater is the major source of drinking in the study area, a proper management plan has to implement before its quality deteriorated.The frequent occurrence of microcystins (MCs) in freshwater poses serious threats to the drinking water safety and health of human beings. Although MCs have been detected in individual fresh waters in China, little is known about their occurrence over a large geographic scale. An investigation of 30 subtropical lakes in eastern China was performed during summer 2018 to determine the MCs concentrations in water and their possible risk via direct water consumption to humans, and to assess the associated environmental factors. MCs were detected in 28 of 30 lakes, and the highest mean MCs concentrations occurred in Lake Chaohu (26.7 μg/L), followed by Lake Taihu (3.11 μg/L). MC-LR was the primary variant observed in our study, and MCs were mainly produced by Microcystis, Anabaena (Dolicospermum), and Oscillatoria in these lakes. Replete nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations, irradiance, and stable water column conditions were critical for dominance of MC-producing cyanobacteria and high MCs production in our study. Hazard quotients indicated that human health risk of MCs in most lakes was at moderate or low levels except Lakes Chaohu and Taihu. Nutrient control management is recommended to decrease the likelihood of high MCs production. Finally, we recommend the regional scale thresholds of total nitrogen and total phosphorus concentrations of 1.19 mg/L and 7.14 × 10-2 mg/L, respectively, based on the drinking water guideline of MC-LR (1 μg/L) recommended by World Health Organization. These targets for nutrient control will aid water quality managers to reduce human health risks created by exposure to MCs.Ponds are important for their ecological value and for the ecosystem services they provide to human societies, but they are strongly affected by human activities. Peri-urban development, currently one of the most pervasive processes of land use change in Europe, exposes ponds to both urban and agricultural contaminants, causing a potential combination of adverse effects. This study, focused on 12 ponds located in a peri-urban area, has two main objectives (1) to link the physico-chemical characteristics of the waters and the nature of their contaminants, either organic or mineral, with the human activities around ponds, and (2) to estimate the environmental risk caused by these contaminants. The ponds were sampled during two consecutive years in both spring and in autumn. Although the ponds were distributed over a limited geographical area, their contamination profiles were different and more correlated with the agricultural than the urban land use. In terms of aptitude for biology, half of the ponds were classified in degraded states due to their physico-chemical parameters, but without correlation with the endocrine disrupting activities and the levels of organic pollutants as indicators. The main quantified organic pollutants, however, were pesticides with sufficiently high levels in certain cases to induce an environmental risk exceeding the classical thresholds of risk quotient.This article investigates the effects of real income, trade openness, and energy consumption on the ecological footprint using a panel data of 13 Asian countries over the 1973-2014 period. The empirical findings suggest that the panel variance-ratio test confirms the existence of a long-run equilibrium relationship among ecological footprint real income, trade openness, and energy consumption. Results from panel pooled mean group estimates confirm that the long-run elasticity of real income, trade openness, and energy consumption is 0.16, -0.07, and 0.51, respectively. The real income and energy consumption have a positive impact on the ecological footprint. There are three bidirectional causal relationships that were found between ecological footprint and real income; between energy consumption and ecological footprint; and between trade openness and ecological footprint. In addition, three unidirectional causalities can be found a unidirectional causality running from real income to trade openness; from real income to energy consumption; and from trade openness to energy consumption. Those causal relationships show that economic indicators are highly related to ecological footprint. The findings recommend that various governments should fund more in renewable energy and efficiency upgrade and continue sustaining their growth without hurting the environment.The ability of ungulates to discriminate among vegetation patches depends largely on the senses of vision, olfaction, tactility, and gustation. However, little is known about how ungulates rely on the respective senses in response to varying patch characteristics. This study aimed to evaluate how relative importance of senses in patch discrimination by cattle is affected by the sensory contrast between the discrimination targets. Five Japanese Black cows were allowed to choose between two forage patches from a distance of about 1 m. Two combinations of forage patches were used one was a pair of green and dead forages of bahiagrass (BG) with clear mutual contrast in appearance and odor, and the other was a pair of green forages of BG and cogongrass (CG) with visual and olfactory resemblance. Cows preferably located and ate the green BG as the first choice (Type 1), or as the second choice after touching (Type 2) or further biting (Type 3) the alternative in error. Overall, Type 1 accounted for a high above-chance proportion of 0.94 in the green BG vs. dead BG discrimination, indicating the primary importance of vision and olfaction. By contrast, in the green BG vs. green CG discrimination, Type 1 remained at the chance level of 0.55 with proportions of 0.17 for Type 2 and 0.28 for Type 3, indicating the primary importance of tactility on the muzzle and in the mouth. The context-specific importance of the four senses in patch discrimination represents an adaptive mechanism of animals foraging in grasslands.Based on longitudinal mixed methods ethnographic research conducted in China from the mid-1990s to 2018, this article argues that Chinese lay language use divides what Americans and Canadians refer to as „menopause” into two distinct though overlapping concepts of the narrow juejing or end of menstruation and the broader non-gender-specific gengnianqi or „transition between middle and old age.” While comparison with research done by Lock in Japan shows that Japanese language uses a similar set of two overlapping yet distinct terms called heikei and könenki, there are important differences between Chinese and Japanese views and experiences of female midlife amidst the similarities. While views and experiences of juejing in China are very similar to notions of heikei in Japan, gengnianqi is quite different from könenki. Like in Japan, the end of menstruation tends to be welcomed by women in China. Also like in Japan, midlife women in China had a lower prevalence of hot flashes than that found in the US and Canada. Also similar to Japan, Chinese women rarely associate hot flashes with embarrassment. However, unlike in the Japanese sample, the Chinese women reported a higher rate of irritability than even the American and Canadian samples. Contrasting with könenki, which is primarly associated with bodily aches and self-restraint in Japan, gengnianqi is commonly viewed as a time of vulnerability to irritable outbursts which must be allowed, though managed carefully. Overall, I show how menopause and midlife aging as concepts and as lived experiences are subject to variation related to differences in language, cultural ideas and practices, local biologies, and culturally-mediated generational experiences of historical change.