• Title/Summary/Keyword: agricultural risk

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A Probabilistic Assessment of Human Health Risk from Arsenic-Contaminated Rice Grown Near The Mining Areas of Korea

  • Paik, Min-Kyoung;Kim, Won-Il;Yoo, Ji-Hyock;Kim, Jin-Kyoung;Im, Geon-Jae;Hong, Moo-Ki
    • Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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    • v.25 no.2
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    • pp.143-147
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    • 2010
  • Chronic exposure to Arsenic (As) causes significant human health effects including various cancers. Total As concentrations from 300 polished rice samples cultivated near the mining areas in Korea were analyzed to estimate a probabilistic assessment of human health risk from As-contaminated rice. The mean of total As concentrations in rice was 0.09 mg/kg and lognormal distribution model was set for total As concentrations. Human health risk for As in rice was estimated using gender-specific rice consumption data and average daily dose (ADD). While cancer risk (CR) and hazard quotient (HQ) were calculated using oral cancer slope factor (OCSF) and Reference dose (RfD) suggested by the U.S. EPA. Mean of CR posed by total As was 2.16 (for male) and 1.83 (for female) per 10,000. The HQ for general population from rice cultivated near the mining areas in Korea was below 1 as the $50^{th}$ percentile of general population. However, less than 10% of general population consuming rice cultivated near the mining areas would exceed 1.0. This result is similar with those from each gender-specific group.

A Case Study of Developing E-Learning Contents of Agricultural Safety and Health based on Risk Assessment (위험성 평가에 기반한 농작업 안전관리 E-Learning 체험 프로그램 개발 사례 연구)

  • Kim, J.H.;Lee, K.S.;Kim, D.M.;Lee, K.S.;Kong, Y.K.;Jung, M.C.;Lee, Inseok
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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    • v.29 no.4
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    • pp.140-146
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    • 2014
  • This paper presents a case study to develop e-learning contents of agricultural safety based on the assessment of risks of 4 selected crops and stock farming: rice, potatoes, apples, tomatoes and stock raising. The aged farmers, who are main workforce of current Korean agriculture and relatively more vulnerable to various risks of agricultural work compared to younger workers, were considered as the main users of the contents in developing them. The safety guidelines were presented as simple as possible and the interfaces were designed to be simple and easy to use so that the older users can use it without much difficulty. In making the scenarios of the contents, risk assessments were carried out for each crop and stock farming with the focus being on occupational diseases rather than accidental injuries. To make the contents more attractive to the farmers, the functions requiring active responses from the users, such as answering simple questions, were included in the contents. Usability evaluation by experts of ergonomics and agricultural tasks were carried out in modifying the draft version, whereas formal usability test was not included in the case study. Though there are some limitations in the developed contents in the aspects of evaluation of usability and effectiveness, this case study shows the structured procedure of developing e-learning safety contents based on the risk assessments on agricultural tasks. The developed e-learning contents are expected to be used practically and easily in educating and training older farmers about safety and health of agricultural tasks.

Forest Fire Risk Zonation in Madi Khola Watershed, Nepal

  • Jeetendra Gautam
    • Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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    • v.40 no.1
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    • pp.24-34
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    • 2024
  • Fire, being primarily a natural phenomenon, is impossible to control, although it is feasible to map the forest fire risk zone, minimizing the frequency of fires. The spread of a fire starting in any stand in a forest can be predicted, given the burning conditions. The natural cover of the land and the safety of the population may be threatened by the spread of forest fires; thus, the prevention of fire damage requires early discovery. Satellite data and geographic information system (GIS) can be used effectively to combine different forest-fire-causing factors for mapping the forest fire risk zone. This study mainly focuses on mapping forest fire risk in the Madikhola watershed. The primary causes of forest fires appear to be human negligence, uncontrolled fire in nearby forests and agricultural regions, and fire for pastoral purposes which were used to evaluate and assign risk values to the mapping process. The majority of fires, according to MODIS events, occurred from December to April, with March recording the highest occurrences. The Risk Zonation Map, which was prepared using LULC, Forest Type, Slope, Aspect, Elevation, Road Proximity, and Proximity to Water Bodies, showed that a High Fire Risk Zone comprised 29% of the Total Watershed Area, followed by a Moderate Risk Zone, covering 37% of the total area. The derived map products are helpful to local forest managers to minimize fire risks within the forests and take proper responses when fires break out. This study further recommends including the fuel factor and other fire-contributing factors to derive a higher resolution of the fire risk map.

Sequestration and Bioavailability of Organopollutants in Soil;Their Implication to the Risk Assessment

  • Chung, Nam-Hyun;Lee, Il-Seok;Song, Hee-Sang;Bang, Won-Gi
    • Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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    • v.19 no.5
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    • pp.442-449
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    • 2000
  • The bioremediation is an economic technology to remove the organopollutants from soil. It is often found that the remediation could not remove the compounds below the levels determined by vigorous extractions as required by regulatory agencies. The reason for the reduced bioavailability with increasing time of aging has been accredited to the sequestration of the compounds in remote sites within or between soil particles. Then, the aging could be defined as the time-dependent sequestration. Partitioning and entrapment have been suggested as mechanism for aging. The rate and extent of the sequestration varies among dissimilar soils. The bioavailability of aged pollutants in soil could be measured by bioassays, mild solvent extraction, and soild-phase extractions. The sequestration could be affected by many factors including various soil properties, wetting and drying cycle, and the presence of cosolutes and NAPLs etc. The bioavailability and sequestration should be considered to determine the environmentally acceptable endpoint.

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Monitoring and Risk Assessment of Heavy Metals in Edible Mushrooms (국내 유통 버섯 중 중금속 함량 조사 및 위해성 평가)

  • Kim, Ji-Young;Yoo, Ji-Hyock;Lee, Ji-Ho;Kim, Min-Ji;Kang, Dae-Won;Ko, Hyeon-Seok;Hong, Su-Myeong;Im, Geon-Jae;Kim, Doo-Ho;Jung, Goo-Bok;Kim, Won-Il
    • Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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    • v.31 no.1
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    • pp.37-44
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    • 2012
  • BACKGROUND: Many edible mushrooms are known to accumulate high levels of heavy metals. This research was focused on health risk assessment to investigate the mushrooms in Korea, arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb) and mercury (Hg) contaminations in edible mushrooms in cultivated areas were investigated, and health risk was assessed through dietary intake of mushrooms. METHODS AND RESULTS: The heavy metals in mushrooms were analyzed by ICP/MS after acid digestion. Probabilistic health risk were estimated by Monte-Carlo simulation techniques. The average contents of As, Cd, Pb, and Hg were $0.035{\pm}0.042$ mg/kg, $0.017{\pm}0.020$ mg/kg, $0.043{\pm}0.013$ mg/kg, and $0.004{\pm}0.004$ mg/kg, respectively. The results showed that contents of Cd and Pb did not exceed maximum residual levels established by European Uion regulation (Cd 0.20 mg/kg and Pb 0.30 mg/kg). For health risk assessment, estimated intakes in all age populations did not exceed the provisional tolerable daily intake of As and Hg, provisional tolerable monthly intake of Cd, provisional tolerable weekly intake of Pb. The Hazard Index (HI) were ranged from $0.03{\times}10^{-4}{\sim}0.01{\times}10^{-3}$ for As, $0.02{\times}10^{-3}{\sim}0.81{\times}10^{-3}$ for Cd, $0.06{\times}10^{-3}{\sim}0.38{\times}10^{-3}$ for Pb, and $0.08{\times}10^{-4}{\sim}0.14{\times}10^{-3}$ for Hg at general population. CONCLUSION: The HI from the ratio analysis between daily exposure and safety level values was less than 1.0. This results demonstrated that human exposure to heavy metals through dietary intake of mushrooms might not cause adverse effect.

Pesticide Residue Survey and Risk Assessment of Fruits in Daejeon (대전시 유통 과실류의 농약 잔류 실태 및 위해성 평가)

  • Han, Kook-Tak;Park, Hye-Jin;Lee, Kyu-Seung;Kim, Il-Jung;Kim, Kyu-Sub;Cho, Sung-Min
    • Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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    • v.21 no.4
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    • pp.279-285
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    • 2002
  • Pesticide residues in some fruits collected at Noeun wholesale market, Daejeon were surveyed and assessed its risk. In 120 samples, the detection rate of pesticide was 70.8% and the rate exceed MRL was 1.67%. Highly detection rate of commodities was apple, peach and grape. Organophosphorus, organochlorine and pyrethroid insecticide were found with similar rate relatively, but most of fungicides were procymidone(dicarboximides) and chlorothalonil(organochlorine). The order of detected pesticide were chlorothalonil, chlorpyrifos, fenvalerate, procymidone, deltamethrin and EPN. In order to assess risk estimated intake amount of each pesticide was compared to ADI. Although some peach were exceed MRL the total amount and uptake pesticides was less than 1.22% comparing to ADI.

Prevalence and risk factors of helminth infections in cattle of Bangladesh

  • Rahman, A.K.M.A.;Begum, N.;Nooruddin, M.;Rahman, Md. Siddiqur;Hossain, M.A.;Song, Hee-Jong
    • Korean Journal of Veterinary Service
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    • v.32 no.3
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    • pp.265-273
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    • 2009
  • A cross-sectional survey was undertaken to identify risk factors and clinical signs associated with parasitic helminth infections of cattle in Mymensignh district of Bangladesh. A nonrandom convenience sampling method was used to select 138 animals from 40 farmers/herds. The eggs per gram of faeces (epg) for nematodes and trematodes were determined by McMaster and Stoll's methods respectively. Animal-level and herd-level data were recorded by means of a questionnaire. Multi-collinearity amongst explanatory variables were assessed using $2{\times}2{\times}\;X^2$ test and one variable in a pair was dropped if $P{\leq}0.05$ formultiple logistic regression models. Association study between outcome and explanatory variables was conducted using classification tree, random forests and multiple logistic regression. A positive epg was considered as infected. Analyses were performed using $STATA^{(R)}$, version 8.0/Intercooled and $R^{(R)}$, Version 2.3.0. Seventy eight percent of the cattle were found to be infected with at least one type of helminth. Twenty four pairs of combinations of explanatory variables showed significant associations. Male animals (OR=3.3, P=.006, 95% CI=1.4, 7.7) were associated with significantly increased prevalence of nematode infection. Female cattle of the study area are mostly cross-breed, kept indoor, fed relatively good diet and not used for draught purpose. Males are used for draught purpose thereby more exposed to nematode infective stage and provided with relatively poor diet. So stressed male cattle may become more susceptible to nematode infection. All of the three statistical techniques selected gender and lumen motility as most important variables in association with nematode infection in cattle. The result of this survey can only be extrapolated to the periurban cattle population of traditional management system.

Study on Selection Criteria of Small-Scales Reservoirs for Emergency Action Plan(EAP) Establishment (소규모 저수지 대상 비상대처계획 수립 선정기준 연구)

  • Park, Ki-Chan;Choi, Kyung-Sook
    • Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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    • v.61 no.3
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    • pp.101-112
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    • 2019
  • This study developed selection criteria of small-scales reservoirs, having under $300,000m^3$ storage capacity, for the Emergency Action Plan(EAP) establishment in order to reduce the disaster risks of the reservoir's failures. Those reservoirs are out of ranges of Korean EAP establishment standard, but have potential risk of disasters as they have often failed by the recent extreme rainfall events and earthquakes, causing economical and life losses. The problem of reservoir aging is also one of the reasons of them. In this study, the developed selection criteria of small reservoirs for EAP establishment are storage capacity, embankment height, reservoir age, heavy rain factor and earthquake factor. These criteria were selected based on the review of the existing EAP establishment guidelines, analysis of the past dam failure cases, and the previous related studies. The quantification of these criteria were conducted for the practical applications in the fields, and applied to 67 previous failures in order to investigate the relation of each criteria with these failures. The earthquake factor found to be the highest relations followed by heavy rain factors, combination of earthquake and heavy rain factors, and reservoir age. The classification was made as observation and review groups for EAP establishments based on overlapping numbers of each criteria. This classifications applied to 354 reservoirs designated as having the potential disaster risk by MOIS, and showed 38.4% of observation and 11.9% of review groups. Anticipatory monitoring and regular inspection should be made by professional facility managers for the observation group, and necessity of EAP establishment should be assessed for the review group based on the downstream status and financial budget.