Urban soils in many cities have been found to be contaminated with lead from past usage of leaded petrol, deteriorating lead-based exterior paints and industrial sources. Currently, the spatial distribution of soil lead concentrations in the Melbourne metropolitan area is unknown. The objective of this study was to perform a preliminary assessment of the spatial distributions of the surface soi...

A study was conducted to determine suitable soil properties as soil quality indicators, using factor analysis in order to evaluate the effects of land use change on loessial hillslope soils of the Shastkola District in Golestan Province, northern Iran. To this end, forty surface soil (0-30 cm) samples were collected from four adjacent sites with the following land uses systems: (1) natural fore...

The overgrazing and excessive utilization of rangelands has caused vegetationand soil degradation in many rangelands. In the rangeland management, the soil andvegetation elements, environmental factors and livestock should be considered as decisionmaking agents. Various methods are applicable for the rangeland restoration as contourfurrows and mortar stone dam. In order to evaluate the effects ...

To accommodate major civil engineering projects in or in the vicinity of peatlands, it is essential to stabilise peat deposits. On the other hand, the accumulation of waste tyres in recent decades has caused environmental problems around the world. An effective remedy for both issues is to use scrap tyre material to stabilise problematic peat soils. This article reports an experimental investig...

BACKGROUND Cadmium and lead compounds are classified as human carcinogens by several regulatory agencies. Twenty five percent of all cancer-related deaths are attributed to gastrointestinal cancers (GI Ca). We investigated the levels of 2 different heavy metals (Cd and Pb) in the soils of the Lenjanat region, Isfahan province, Central Iran where intensive agriculture is surrounded by different ...

This report is part of a serial study applying stable isotope labelling to rice microcosms to track the utilization of recently photosynthesized carbon by active microbiota in the rhizosphere. The objective of the present study was to apply phospholipid fatty acid-based stable isotope probing (PLFA-SIP) to detect the spatial variation of active microorganisms associated with rhizosphere carbon ...

BACKGROUND Acanthamoeba spp. is a free-living opportunistic protozoan parasites, which can be found in tap, fresh and bottled mineral waters, contact lens solutions, soil etc. OBJECTIVES The present study is aimed to determine the Acanthamoeba spp. on the basis of their morpho-molecular aspects in different water sources of the West Azerbaijan province, Northwest of Iran. METHODS In this cr...

Three new species of the genus Neophyllobius Berlese, 1886 are described and illustrated from Iran: Neophyllobius edwardi sp. nov. and Neophyllobius seemani sp. nov. collected from soil under oak trees; and Neophyllobius dogani sp. nov. collected from soil under Astragalus bushes. A key to the species of Iran is provided.

Wind erosion is a widespread phenomenon in arid region. The purpose of this study was assessed the capacity of nanoclay to control soil erosion in wind tunnel experiment. The nanoclay isolated from soils was dominant in montmorillonite. A sandy soil from the Khara desert, nearly 100 km East of Isfahan (Central Iran) was used. The soils of this area are structurally unstable and sandy texture ma...