Some Marine and Coastal have been altered over long periods of time, resulting in a loss of knowledge of their true healthy state, new research suggests. In this UK study, researchers used historical records, samples of sediment and present-day diving surveys to reconstruct the true history of shellfish beds on the east coast of Scotland.

Bycatch (species caught unintentionally in fisheries) in some commercial marine fisheries is the main cause of death in some populations of seabirds, sea turtles, marine mammals, sharks and fish. New research has revealed that bycatch from tuna fishing can be reduced by using better equipment, without compromising industry profits. However, significant policy efforts are needed to monitor bycatch and enforce more sustainable fishing practices.

The impact of polluted urban soil on trees is highlighted in a recent study from Latvia. The researchers found that high salt levels from de-icing chemicals and nutrient imbalance in soil damaged lime trees growing in the city of Riga.

Damage caused by boats anchoring in seagrass meadows off the coast of Sardinia continues despite restrictions, new research shows. The study's authors provide a number of recommendations to help protect seagrass. These include creating special anchoring areas in seagrass-free locations, and limiting the number of boats that enter a marine protected area.

A new method of assessing human impacts on seafloor habitats suggests that over a third of habitats in the Baltic Sea have an ‘unfavourable’ status. The method is presented in a recent study which concludes that the tool can be effective in helping implement the EU’s Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD).

During the last century, large areas of the seafloor have been damaged by human activities such as fishing, sand and gravel extraction and navigational dredging. This Thematic Issue presents quality research exploring the physical damage to the seafloor, new methods for providing seabed information and pressures on marine ecosystems from activities such as deep-sea mining.

Nearly 85% of residents in central Dublin, Ireland, could be exposed to damaging levels of night-time traffic noise, according to a recent study. The researchers explain how they assessed population exposure to noise and calculate the impacts of several noise reduction measures, providing information that could help EU Member States meet the Environmental Noise Directive’s requirements.

Sustainability in the production of goods and services could be encouraged by replacing value-added tax (VAT) with ‘DaVAT,’ a damage and value-added tax, a new study suggests. This tariff is partly based on a life-cycle assessment (LCA) of goods and services and varies from high (products deemed to seriously harm the environment and human health) to low (those with a lesser impact). The researchers propose a novel way to convert VAT into DaVAT and provide a new policy tool, based on LCA, that can be applied by any country wishing to reform its consumption tax system and move towards a more sustainable future.

Higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and temperatures under climate change are likely to increase the rate of corrosive damage in reinforced concrete structures, according to a recent study. This could result in costly repairs in the future, unless structures are suitably adapted.

Over 75 000 regulatory inspection reports for over 32 000 oil and gas production wells drilled in Pennsylvania, US between 2000 and 2012, have been analysed in a recent study. In these reports, the inspectors logged six times as many incidents of damage to the walls of shale gas and oil wells than in wells for conventional oil and gas.

Ocean acidification could damage the organs of Atlantic herring, as well as slow their growth and development, recent experiments show. It adds to the list of pressures currently threatening this commercially important species, including over-fishing and marine pollution.

Marine litter not only causes environmental damage, but has significant economic costs for industry. A recent study has now estimated that marine litter in the Asia-Pacific region is likely to cost over US$1.26billion per year in damage to marine industries. Policy options for reducing this cost are explored.

Using open-access software and power saving technologies, researchers have developed an easily deployed, low-cost network for monitoring large areas of the Amazon rainforest. This Peruvian study shows that environmental information, such as soil moisture and rates of photosynthesis, can be recorded and uploaded to the internet without having to make repeated visits to remote areas.

Moore, Amelia, 1981- author

Human activities are threatening river ecosystems in the Mediterranean. Recent research in south-east Spain has highlighted the need to assess biodiversity and the ecological condition of river ecosystems at both basin-wide and local scales. The researchers say this will provide a better assessment of river ecosystems, aiding management decisions.

Climate change is likely to increase the frequency and severity of flooding. This study reviewed damage mitigating measures at local, regional and national scales, and suggests that approaches including both spatial planning and private precautionary measures (such as building adaptations) are important for integrated risk management.

Researchers have developed a new tool for assessing and predicting the damage caused by droughts to crop yields and hydroelectric energy production. The tool could provide useful information to policymakers, helping them develop drought management practices to improve food and energy security and adapt to climate change.

One of Athena’s larger goals is to end what it describes as a system in which Amazon competes with other companies to make and sell goods and then dictates the terms by which those competitors find their customers on Amazon’s platform and controls how they ship their wares to market.

After years of working almost exclusively on long-term projects and pushing day-to-day management to his deputies, Bezos, 56, has turned back to the here-and-now problems facing Amazon, the company said, as the giant retailer grapples with a surge of demand, labor unrest and supply chain challenges brought on by the coronavirus.

Amazon India has announced a Rs 10 crore investment to sign up, train and help businesses catalogue products.

​​ According to IAMAI's 'Digital in India' report, India had 504 million active Internet users, who logged onto the web at least once in the last one month, at the end of November 2019. In rural India, the number of accessing Internet daily had grown by 30 million from March 2019, it added.

While Amazon Web Services, or AWS, and Microsoft are restructuring some large contracts on a case-by-case basis, according to people familiar with the decisions, smaller companies aren’t receiving the same flexibility.

Amazon is beefing up its data centre infrastructure and cloud services business in India as the clamour around data localisation grows louder everyday.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the Cloud arm of retail giant Amazon has announced the third availability zone in its Mumbai Cloud Region.

Adani expects to invest Rs 700 billion to build data parks in India over the next two decades.

The investment follows a Rs1,715 crore infusion into Amazon’s payments and wholesale arms last month.

“We are serving 97% of the pin code across the country, without any delivery charge. We are helping farmers at their doorsteps, just the way urban people benefit from e-commerce shopping”, asserts AK Gupta, Head-IT at IFFCO.

New research from the Mediterranean suggests that marine ecosystems are disturbed by the organic food and faeces waste from fish farms, even when the pollutants themselves can no longer be detected. The study recommends calculating an individual pollution 'carrying capacity' for each type of marine habitat, and provides the first published estimate for a ma??rl habitat.

Gold mining areas in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest expanded from under 10 000 hectares in 1999 to over 50 000 hectares by 2012, and now destroys more forest than agriculture and logging combined, new research has shown. Using high-resolution satellite imaging, researchers estimated gold mining areas to be twice as large as estimated by previous studies, which did not include the combined effects of thousands of small, mainly illicit, mining operations.

Milder winters under climate change could increase the extent of alder tree (Alnus glutinosa) decline in Europe due to the increased spread of the pathogen Phytophthora alni, a recent study has found. However, this may be offset by hotter summers, which reduce the severity of the disease.

A new disease capable of devastating European salamander and newt populations was probably introduced via international wildlife trade, new research has found. The study shows that the disease is deadly for many European species of salamanders and its analysis of more than 5000 amphibians from across four continents suggests the pathogen spread from Asia to Europe via the pet trade.

Adapted habitat equivalency analysis (HEA) may help decision makers select projects to restore damaged ecosystems under a limited budget. HEA, used to assess damages to natural resources, can help to clarify objectives and compare trade-offs between projects to choose the most cost-effective among them, according to this study’s authors.

Insect-eating bats are estimated to be worth US$ 1 billion (€0.91 billion) a year to maize farmers around the world, a new study has revealed. Not only do bats reduce crop damage by eating adult corn earworm crop pests, they also suppress fungal infections in maize ears. Bats and their habitats need to be better protected for their ecological and economic contributions, say the study’s authors.

Moss helps prevent soil erosion on fire-damaged land, a Portuguese study suggests. The researchers analysed water that ran off from post-fire hillsides. They found less sediment and organic matter in run-off from patches of land with high levels of moss than from those with low levels of moss. Moss quickly establishes itself on land after fires, so the study suggests that land managers could take advantage of its restorative effects by deliberately encouraging its growth.

Combinations of antibiotics have been found in high enough concentrations to pose a serious threat to aquatic ecosystems, in a recent Spanish study. Antibiotics can have toxic effects on the bacteria and algae that form the basis of aquatic ecosystems.

Thousands of tonnes of chemical warfare agents were dumped into the Baltic Sea after the Second World War. A recent study has shown that fish caught near the dumping grounds show high levels of genetic and cell damage, revealing the long legacy of these toxic substances.

Oil spills can decimate seabird populations. Some birds can be saved, if the oil is washed from their feathers in time; however, this long process is stressful for the birds and requires numerous volunteers. Researchers have now developed a ‘bird-washing machine’ which reduces the washing time from two hours to four minutes. When trialled on oiled birds rescued from the Caspian Sea this resulted in a substantial increase in survival: 88.5% survival after seven days compared to 50% survival with current washing techniques.

Tiny polyester fibres, which are washed into rivers, lakes and seas every time we do our laundry could cause more harm to animals than plastic microbeads, finds a new study. The researchers looked at the effect of microbeads and fibres on a small crustacean called Ceriodaphnia dubia, which lives in freshwater lakes. They found that although both types of plastic were toxic, microfibres caused more harm. Both microplastics stunted the growth of the animals, and reduced their ability to have offspring; microfibres, however, did this to a greater degree, and also caused noticeable deformities in the crustacean’s body and antennae.

Nano-sized particles of plastic can be more damaging to marine species than larger sized microplastics, a new study shows. Lab tests revealed that nanoplastics can damage cell membranes in tiny marine creatures called rotifers (Rotifera), disrupting their natural defences against toxicants. The researchers found that rotifers that had been exposed to nanoparticles of polystyrene were significantly more susceptible to the lethal effects of persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

According to new research, emissions of anthropogenic nitrous oxide (N2O) are now causing more damage to the ozone layer than those of any controlled ozone depleting substance and this is projected to remain the case for the rest of this century. The study suggests that limiting N2O emissions could help both the recovery of the ozone layer and tackle climate change.

The policy implications of agricultural losses caused by high concentrations of ground level ozone have been highlighted by a recent study. The study modelled ozone impacts on 14 of the most important crops grown in the Greater Thessaloniki area of Greece. The results provide information about differences in scale of losses and economic impacts across the region which may be useful in designing agricultural subsidy schemes.

A study in the Czech Republic has found a link between exposure to certain air pollutants and an increase in DNA damage for people exposed to high levels of the pollution. They found that breathing small quantities of a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), called benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P), caused an increase in the number of certain ‘biomarkers’ in DNA associated with a higher risk of diseases, including cancer.

Under the United Nations Minamata Convention on mercury, China and India could avoid a combined 242 tonnes of mercury emissions in 2050 from coal-fired power plants, a new study predicts. This amount is equal to approximately 12% of total emissions in 2010. While the benefits will be mostly regional, lower mercury deposition in surrounding oceans is good news for Europeans who eat fish sourced from those waters.

Researchers have estimated that, annually, almost 3 000 deaths (i.e. 20% of mortality) in Barcelona, Spain, are premature, and would be preventable if residents lived in urban environments that met international exposure recommendations for physical activity, air pollution, noise, heat and access to green spaces. The results emphasise the need to reduce motorised traffic, promote active and public transport, and provide adequate green space to encourage exercise and mitigate the impacts of environmental hazards in cities.

Researchers have identified plant fungi in the Ecuadorian rainforest that can digest plastic. The discovery hints that there may be a wide range of effective waste-consuming microbes in existence, according to the study, which found that several different fungi, including one called Pestalotiopsis microspora, can break down the widely used plastic, polyurethane.

The median list price of homes on the market in the U.S. is slightly higher than a year ago

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. ⸺ Route 3 in Lancaster County has reopened to through traffic between Route 201 and Route 600 in the Lively area. The road...

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. ⸺  Route 202 (Hampton Hall Road) in Northumberland County reopened to through traffic today following an emergency repair...

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. ⸺  Long-term repair work is underway to rebuild state-maintained roads that sustained severe damage during Tropical Storm...

LYNCHBURG —Over a week after the rain and wind of Tropical Storm Michael took aim on the Commonwealth, the Virginia Department of Transportation continues to assess roads and bridges in the Lynchburg District affected by the storm. By the time Michael exited the area, over 220 road and 360 structures were under water and as of today (Friday, October 19) only six short-term closures, in addition to the long-term closures below, remain.