Claudio Bravo-Linares

Universidad Austral de Chile · Instituto de Ciencias Químicas

Riverine sediments play an important role in the healthy functioning of river ecosystems as they provide nutrients and a connectivity signal throughout the catchment sediment cascade. However, excess sediment supply to rivers can have several detrimental impacts on water quality, availability and ecology. The application of catchment management pra...

Soil erosion represents a critical socio-economic and environmental hazard for Mexico and the world. Given that soil erosion is a phenomenon influenced by human activities, it is essential to know the level of cultural perspectives on this matter. An instrument with eight scales was applied to 275 university students from a northwestern Mexican cit...

Purpose Wildfires can have major impacts on water scarcity and water quality linked to off-site transfer of polluting ash and nutrients. Understanding sediment sources in burnt landscapes can help to develop mitigation strategies, especially in catchments planted with introduced species that are prone to fire. We investigated sediment sources activ...

Aquaculture activities in southern Chile demand floating devices to produce electricity powered by diesel generators. It has been recently proposed to replace this fuel with propane. However, little is known about the behaviour and possible environmental impacts of an accidental release of propane underwater. In this study we evaluated the impact o...

La diversidad biológica en el suelo es amplia y su función ecológica es necesaria para los servicios ecosistémicos que éste provee. Diversas actividades antropogénicas contribuyen a la pérdida de la fertilidad de este recurso y aceleran su erosión. Debido al movimiento del suelo, partículas contaminantes pueden arrastrarse hasta los sitios de depós...

Soil biodiversity is wide and its ecological function is necessary for the ecosystem services it provides. Several anthropogenic activities contribute to the loss of this resource’s fertility and speed up its erosion. As a consequence of ground movement, polluting particles are dragged to sites of deposition (mixtures), generating environmental and...

The purpose of this research was to determine the historical evolution of different sources of sediment by land uses in a forest catchment, through the combination of two isotopic techniques: (i) fallout radionuclides (FRNs) for dating sediment cores and (ii) compound-specific stable isotope (CSSI). Ten 30-cm-deep sediment cores (taken in a meander...

Accurate identification of soil erosion hot spots across catchments of different sizes and agro-ecologies through the use of conventional tracing techniques has proven challenging. Since this problem hinders implementation of precise soil conservation measures by land managers and decision-making bodies, novel evidence-based techniques are needed....

Soil erosion is one of the biggest challenges for food production around the world. Many techniques have been used to evaluate and mitigate soil degradation. Nowadays isotopic techniques are becoming a powerful tool to assess soil apportionment. One of the innovative techniques used is the Compound Specific Stable Isotopes (CSSI) analysis, which ha...

Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDD) and polychlorinated dibenzo-p-furans (PCDF) are widely distributed in the environment. The diverse production processes that form these compounds lead to a range of chemical signatures although weathering may cause changes to these signature over time and with increasing distance from their origin. Chemical...

Land degradation is a problem affecting the sustainability of commercial forest plantations. The identification of critical areas prone to erosion can assist this activity to better target soil conservation efforts. Here we present the first use of the carbon-13 signatures of fatty acids (C14 to C24) in soil samples for spatial and temporal tracing...

Fine particulate matter in the atmosphere, especially the fraction less than 2.5 µm in diameter (PM2.5), arises from several sources. Assessing the relative contributions from each source may be modeled through a mixing method, where the chemical signatures of known sources are mixed in a variety of proportions to provide the best explanation of th...

Airborne particulate matter (PM2.5) are known environmental cotaminants. Nevertheless, it is not only the size of particulate matter that influences human health, but also its chemical composition. The chemical composition of the PAH suite in PM2.5 may be indicative of the source materials, typically combustion products. In this study, particulate...

The occurrence of airborne particulate matter has been flagged as "of concern" in several megacities, especially in Asia. Selected Chilean regions have similar problems as wood burning is the major source of heating in homes. This concern has led to mitigation measures restricting the burning of wood at periods when the particulate matter smaller t...

Solute exclusion is a probe technique useful to determine the pore volume and pore size distribution of a cell wall network; however, accurate measuring of molecular probe concentration is critical. In this study, the concentration of polyethylene glycol (PEG) and glucose was measured by detection of their organic carbon using a total organic carbo...

The formation of trihalomethanes (THMs) during water disinfection is related to several parameters such as water temperature, free chlorine and availability of dissolved organic matter. This paper compares and quantifies the THMs in drinking water from Concepción city in the Bío Bío Region of central Chile, during summer of 2007 and autumn–winter 2...

Water used for human consumption may contain mutagens and carcinogens generated during the disinfection process with chlorine. In the study described in this article, the mutagenicity and genotoxicity of water samples taken from the San Cristobal treatment plant in Medellin, Colombia, were evaluated. Short-term mutagenic and genotoxic assays using...

The concentration and signature of n-alkanes (n-C-10 to n-C-33) and 18 PAHs were determined in air filters across a year period (2010) in an urban area of the city of Valdivia, Chile. Filter samples were extracted using sohxlet apparatus and analyzed by GC-MS techniques. Concentrations of total hydrocarbons ranged from 45-352 ng.m(-3) and total PAH...

A pipe rupture during unloading led to a spillage of 350-700 tonnes of Caño Limon, a light sweet crude oil, into San Vicente Bay in 2007. Initial clean-up methods removed the majority of the oil from the sandy beaches although some oil remained on the rocky shores. It was necessary for the responsible party to clean the spilled oil even though at t...

Experiments with microcosms of sand corresponding to high, mid and low intertidal area were contaminated with crude oil and treated with biosolvent. Two treatments were done. The first (treatment 1) treating the sand 5 days before the event of contamination and the second (treatment 2) treated immediately after the contamination. The degradation of...

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are produced by macroalgae in response to environmental stresses. A novel approach using Solid Phase Microextraction (SPME) was used to quantify the production of several VOCs from eight common intertidal algal species from the UK (Ascophyllum nodosum (Linnaeus) Le Jolis, Fucus vesiculosus (Linnaeus), Fucus serratu...

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in the marine environment are produced by biogenic sources (marine macroalgae, phytoplankton, sediments, etc.) as well from anthropogenic sources. The temporal variation of such VOCs was studied together with their relationship to biological, meteorological and physico-chemical factors. Sixty four different VOCs we...

Formation of trihalomethanes (THMs) during water disinfection has been related to several health problems, although the magnitude of these effects is under discussion. This paper quantifies the THMs in drinking water from the Bío-Bío Region of central Chile, the first since the modification of the national reference value (Nch 409/05) to include ma...

Surface seawater samples were collected in the Irish Sea and Liverpool Bay area from the R.V. Prince Madog during the period of 25-31 of March 2006. VOCs were purged with nitrogen, pre-concentrated on a SPME fibre and analysed immediately on a GC-MS. Target compounds quantified were halogenated (0.2-1400 ng L(-1)), BTEXs and mono-aromatics (1.5-290...

A new method of determining the composition of sediment/soil gases and their volatile organic compound (VOC) content is described. VOCs were collected in situ from intertidal sediments in the Menai Strait and surrounding areas. The sampling was performed using a portable sampler comprising a funnel coupled to a SPME fibre. Gases were extracted from...