China's Minqin Oasis once welcomed traders along the ancient Silk Road with rivers, lakes, and lush forests, yet today the region's farmland and grassland are increasingly being engulfed by the sands of the Gobi Desert. The severity of this incremental catastrophe for a declining population of 300,000 residents has brought...
Dams are often promoted as a tool to reduce poverty and spur economic development. Dam construction worldwide, and particularly in China, which has built nearly half the world's large dams since 1949, remains contentious due to the potential for negative environmental and socioeconomic impacts. Despite numerous case studies, there is...
Plastic waste in the oceans is now recognized as a serious threat to marine life and a pollution problem with economic consequences for mariners and coastal states. Annex V of MARPOL, effective December 1988, is an international treaty which prohibits signatory nations from disposing of any plastic material into the...
When applying pesticides it is important to avoid water contamination and pesticide drift as much as possible. This checklist can help. Three separate checklists(before, during and after) make it easier to remember things to do before, during and after an application to avoid contamination and drift.
Environmental and regulatory concerns are causing confined animal feeding operations (CAFO's) to account for phosphorous content when applying wastewater to agricultural fields for disposal. In most cases this requires more land to spread the waste onto so that the phosphorous needs of the crop are not exceeded. A mobile process...
The Willamette Valley of Oregon has high rates of winter precipitation that cause leaching losses of residual fertilizer nitrogen (N) as nitrate (NO₃). Cover crops may have potential to mitigate N loss. Shallow groundwater was sampled for 11 years from plots planted in summer vegetables with and without winter cover...
According to the United States Geological Survey, 9 percent of wells in the Willamette Valley exceed the EPA’s 10 ppm drinking water standard for nitrogen in the NO3– compound, or NO3–-N. A study of 281 domestic drinking water wells in Lane County showed that 22 percent of the wells exceeded...
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Jeff Feaga, former graduate research assistant in
bioengineering, and John Selker, professor of