Ministry of Ecology and Environment

Balancing emission reduction and regulatory burden under inspection limits for diesel fleets

Effectively regulating in-use vehicle emissions requires methods that can identify high-impact emitters within heterogeneous vehicle fleets. This study develops a vehicle-level NOx accounting method based on inspection data, converting measured NOx concentrations into estimated e...

Chemical and Biological Mobilization of Soil Phosphorus by ppk-Expressing Transgenic Rice (Oryza sativa L.)

Phosphorus (P) availability in alkaline soils is constrained by the immobilization of legacy P, particularly through calcium phosphate precipitation. We used a confined soil–plant microcosm to examine how expression of the polyphosphate kinase gene (ppk) is associated with legacy...

Enhanced Microbial Degradation of Herbicides by Modified Biochar: A Review

The extensive application of herbicides in modern intensive agriculture has led to their persistent residue across multimedia environments, posing severe risks to ecosystem and human health. Among the current methods for removing herbicides, the single microbial remediation appro...

Coupled fate and cascading risks of PFAS and heavy metals/metalloids along the soil-plant-human continuum: A critical review

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and heavy metals/metalloids frequently co-occur in soils at industrial, e-waste and fire-training sites and in biosolid- or wastewater-affected agricultural systems. Yet their coupled fate and cascading risks along the soil–plant–human c...

Causality-integrated graph learning for multi-endpoint toxicity prediction

Toxicity prediction remains a longstanding challenge in the safety assessment of numerous artificial chemicals. While conventional single-endpoint models are effective for predicting many molecular properties, they fail to capture the complex mechanisms underlying toxicity, which...

Composting rural kitchen waste for nutrient recovery and runoff pollution mitigation: a Bayesian modeling approach

In China’s ecologically sensitive Erhai Basin, open-dumped rural kitchen waste causes both nutrient loss and water quality degradation. Here we integrate household surveys, on-site composting experiments, and a Bayesian dual-pool wash-off model in a pilot case study of six villag...

Functional division between root endosphere and rhizosphere microbiomes supports seagrass holobiont resilience under high nutrient and sulfide exposure

Coastal eutrophication leads to the co-occurrence of high nutrient loading and sulfide exposure, posing severe threats to the health of seagrass ecosystems. Yet the underlying adaptive mechanisms of the seagrass holobiont remain poorly understood. Here, we conducted a large-scale...

Mechanism-Driven Risk Assessment of 1,3,6-Tribromocarbazole: An Integrated Strategy Implicates ESR1-Associated Cardiovascular Toxicity

Abstract Polyhalogenated carbazoles (PHCZs) are globally distributed emerging persistent organic pollutants, yet their cardiovascular hazards remain largely uncharacterized. We therefore built an adverse outcome pathway (AOP)-guided prediction-to-validation strategy─coupling envi...

Principles of Carbon Isotope Tracing and Its Applications in Energy Geology and Carbon Cycling: Progress, Challenges, and Prospects

Over the past several decades, the conceptual basis for carbon isotope tracing has steadily matured. The method’s high specificity and sensitivity have established it as a robust, widely adopted tool across soil, vegetation, ecology, and environmental research. This paper surveys...

Pollution characteristics, migration and transformation, and health risk assessment of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in environmental media of prototype coking plants in Shanxi, China

Environmental context Coking is one of the important emission sources of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). We analysed distribution characteristics of PAHs emitted from the coke oven top and in environmental media in the prototype coking plants. The migration and transform...

Microbial Diversity and Community Drivers in Caohai Lake (Guizhou, China) Revealed by 16S rRNA Gene Sequencing

Microorganisms are sensitive indicators of aquatic environmental quality and ecosystem stability. Caohai Wetland, a typical subtropical plateau karst wetland suffering ecological degradation under combined natural-anthropogenic disturbances, is one of the three major plateau fres...

Estimating Ground-Level PM2.5 over Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei from DQ-1 Wide-Swath Imager Signals and ERA5 Meteorology Using Physics-Guided Feature Engineering

The DaQi-1 (DQ-1) Wide-Swath Imager (WSI) combines an approximately 2300 km swath with 15 visible-to-shortwave-infrared channels at 75–600 m resolution, providing broad regional coverage and flexible spectral support. We developed an ExtraTrees estimator from WSI signals and ERA5...

Gut Microbiota-Derived Indole-3-propionic Acid Attenuates Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticle-Induced Liver Injury by Targeting Kupffer Cells via the Gut–Liver Axis

Abstract Nanotitanium dioxide (nTiO2) is widely used as a food additive, leading to chronic dietary exposure and rising health concerns. Although adverse effects on the liver and gut microbiota have been individually investigated, whether gut microbiota mediates nTiO2-induced liv...

Neurodevelopmental Toxicity of Tris(2,4-di- tert -Butylphenyl)phosphate: Mechanistic Insights from Laboratory Models and Implications for Human Health

Abstract Organophosphite antioxidants (OPAs) and their transformation products, novel organophosphate esters (NOPEs), are ubiquitous environmental contaminants, yet their toxicological profiles remain poorly understood. This study systematically characterized the neurodevelopment...

Cadmium distribution and tolerance mechanisms in Artemisia argyi under cadmium stress

The dried leaf is the medicinal organ of Artemisia argyi, but the relationships among Cd allocation, physiological defense, cellular injury, and transcriptional responses remain incompletely resolved. We evaluated these responses after 14 d of hydroponic exposure to 0–40 mg/L Cd....

Graph Learning for River Water Quality Forecasting: Advances in Hydrological Connectivity Representation, Dynamic Topology, and Physics-Informed Modeling

Graph neural networks are increasingly used for river water-quality forecasting because they can represent interactions among monitoring locations that conventional site-wise time-series models cannot capture. However, the usefulness of graph learning depends strongly on whether...

Differential Responses of Flowering Functional Groups to Species Loss Altered Community Flowering-Date Synchrony and Reduced Temporal Stability in an Alpine Meadow

Understanding how biodiversity loss alters flowering patterns in plant communities is crucial for predicting species coexistence, community dynamics, and ecosystem functioning under global change. Using phenological records from 2017 to 2023 within a 12-year species removal exper...

From ecological threats to environmental solutions: a critical review of invasive plant species for heavy metal phytoremediation

Heavy metal contamination represents a persistent environmental challenge threatening ecosystem stability, agricultural productivity, and human health. Therefore, the development of sustainable and cost-effective remediation strategies is essential. Phytoremediation, an environme...

PMF Coupled With Random Forest Method Reveals Detailed PM 2.5 Sources and Their Synergistic Effects on Air Pollution Control

Abstract Understanding the sources of emerging PM 2.5 pollution is crucial for developing effective air quality management strategies. This study combines positive matrix factorization (PMF) with random forest (RF) classification to reveal a detailed PM 2.5 source identification...

Application of an Index Based on Aquatic Insect Biotic Integrity for River Ecosystem Health Assessment in Haihe River Basin, China

As critical biological components of freshwater ecosystems, aquatic insects are highly sensitive to cumulative anthropogenic disturbances and can effectively reflect long-term variations in river ecological quality, serving as ideal bioindicators for aquatic ecological monitoring...