Environmental contamination by a non-essential and non-beneficial, although potentially toxic mercury (Hg), is becoming a great threat to the living organisms at a global scale. Owing to its various uses in numerous industrial processes, high amount of Hg is released into different environmental compartments. Environmental Hg contamination can result in food chain contamination, especially due to its accumulation in edible plant parts. Consumption of Hg-rich food is a key source of Hg exposure to humans. Since Hg does not possess any identified biological role and has genotoxic and carcinogenic potential, it is critical to monitor its biogeochemical behavior in the soil-plant system and its influence in terms of possible food chain contamination and human exposure. This review traces a plausible link among Hg levels, its chemical speciation and phytoavailability in soil, accumulation in plants, phytotoxicity and detoxification of Hg inside the plant. The role of different enzymatic (peroxidase, catalase, ascorbate peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase) and non-enzymatic (glutathione, phytochelatins, proline and ascorbic acid) antioxidants has also been elucidated with respect to enhanced generation of reactive radicles and resulting oxidative stress. The review also outlines Hg build-up in edible plant tissues and associated health risks. The biogeochemical role of Hg in the soil-plant system and associated health risks have been described with well summarized and up-to-date data in 12 tables and 4 figures. We believe that this comprehensive review article and meta-analysis of Hg data can be greatly valuable for scientists, researchers, policymakers and graduate-level students. This study evaluates the effects of land use and soil management on a combination of physico-chemical, biological and hydrological properties of soil, in order to assess its quality. Three land uses were selected at the Fuman area, near Masouleh (Iran), grouping soils covered by tea, garden crops and rice. A total of 24 soil samples (3 land uses × 4 replications × 2 soil layers, topsoil and sub-surface soil) was collected; microbial respiration, available water, stability of soil aggregates, pH, organic matter, cation exchange capacity and nutrient content (P, K, N, Mg and Ca) were determined in each land use/soil layer. In comparison with other land uses, garden showed the highest available water, aggregate stability, microbial respiration, nutrient contents and cation exchange capacity, whereas the latter three soil properties had the lowest values in soils covered by tea and rice crops. Based on these results, under the experimental conditions garden had the highest soil quality among the investigated land uses. Conversely, much caution must be paid to some soil properties of tea and rice crops, such as cation exchange capacity, microbial respiration and nutrient contents, which are the lowest among the investigated land uses. Moreover, the differences in the analysed soil properties between the two soil sampling depths were statistically significant (p  less then  0.05). Finally, a Principal Component Analysis clearly clustered soils covered by garden, tea and rice crops in three differentiated groups according to the sampled soil properties. This study provides a contribution in understanding the variability of soil properties under different land uses, indicating that some of these properties must be considered with caution, in order to avoid a decay of soil health. In this study, it was assessed the effectiveness to correct for inner filter effect (IFE) the fluorescence spectra of several wastewaters (i.e., primary, secondary and tertiary wastewater effluents) and wastewater-impacted surface waters using a common method based on UV absorbance measurements. In samples of secondary/tertiary wastewater effluents and surface waters, IFE was severe at excitation wavelengths 240 nm. Overall, the QE increased with the increase of nitrite/nitrate concentration in wastewater. Total suspended solids (TSS) (i.e., particulate organic matter) in water produced intense fluorescence peaks in the tyrosine-like and tryptophan-like region of EEM, and TSS increased the absorbance values at all the excitation wavelengths of the UV-visible absorption spectra in unfiltered samples compared to 0.7 μm filtered samples. On the contrary, tertiary effluents employing full scale sand filtration (TSS  less then  2-4 mg/l) had similar UV absorbance and fluorescence spectra to 0.7 μm filtered samples.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/salinomycin.html  Finally, it was observed that uncorrected fluorescence intensities in the humic-like region of EEM were similar in both filtered and unfiltered samples, and it was independent of TSS concentration, dilution factor and water quality. The present study describes the preparation of 50.3 nm superparamagnetic nanosorbents with high surface area for the adsorptive removal of lead and methyl orange from water. This material is based on the surface modification of iron oxide superparamagnetic nanoparticles with a double-shell coating of mesoporous silica whose porosity was increased up to 570 m2/g by the addition of a porogenic material and its calcination. The adsorptive performance of the nanosorbent was evaluated as a function of several parameters (e.g. solution pH, pollutant initial concentration, and contact time), concluding that pHs around 5 are needed to avoid precipitation of Pb2+ as Pb(OH)2 and the equilibrium adsorption capacity is reached after 2 h in all cases. The experimental data on the adsorption capacity of lead and methyl orange onto the nanosorbent were fit to a pseudo-second order kinetic model and Langmuir isotherm model. The maximum adsorption capacity value increases from 35 up to 50 mg/gNS for lead removal with increasing nanosorbent surface area. Contrary, for methyl orange the maximum adsorption goes up to 240 mg/gNS, indicating a larger nanosorbent surface affinity for the organic matter that is able to diffuse through the silica pores as probed by the intraparticle diffusion model. In addition, we found an good reusability (100% recovering after 4 sorption/desorption cycles for methyl orange removal), which makes of this magnetic nanosorbent suitable for remediation technologies.