Military activities drastically affect soil properties mainly via physical/chemical disturbances during military training and warfare. The present paper aims to review (1) physical/chemical disturbances in soils following military activities, (2) approaches to characterization of contaminated military-impacted sites, and (3) advances in human health risk assessment for evaluating potential adverse impacts. A literature search mainly covering the period 2010–2020 but also including relevant selected papers published before 2010 was conducted. Selected studies (more than 160) were grouped as follows and then reviewed: ~40 on the presence of potentially toxic elements (PTEs), ~20 on energetic compounds (ECs) and chemical warfare agents (CWAs), ~40 on human health risk assessment, and generic limits/legislation, and ~60 supporting studies. Soil physical disturbances (e.g., compaction by military traffic) may drastically affect soil properties (e.g., hydraulic conductivity) causing environmental issues (e.g., increased erosion). Chemical disturbances are caused by the introduction of numerous PTEs, ECs, and CWAs and are of a wide nature. Available generic limits/legislation for these substances is limited, and their contents do not always overlap. Among numerous PTEs in military-impacted zones, Pb seems particularly problematic due to its high toxicity, abundance, and persistence. For ECs and CWAs, their highly variable physiochemical properties and biodegradability govern their specific distribution, environmental fate, and transport. Most site characterization includes proper spatial/vertical profiling, albeit without adequate consideration of contaminant speciation/fractionation. Human health risk assessment studies generally follow an agreed upon framework; however, the depth/adequacy of their use varies. Generic limits/legislation limited to a few countries do not always include all contaminants of concern, their content doesn’t overlap, and scientific basis is not always clear. Thus, a comprehensive scientific framework covering a range of contaminants is needed. Overall, contaminant speciation, fractionation, and mobility have not been fully considered in numerous studies. Chemical speciation and bioaccessibility, which directly affect the results for risk characterization, should be properly integrated into risk assessment processes for accurate results.

Deserts are the main sources of emitted dust, and are highly responsive to wind erosion. Low content of soil moisture and lack of vegetation cover lead to

Background: Long-range transport of dust aerosol has intense impacts on the atmospheric environment over wide areas. Methods: The annual and seasonal changes in meteorological parameters associated with the occurrence of dust storms were studied. The features of an intense dust storm and its transport characteristics were studied during June 7th to June 9th 2010 in Ahvaz city. Temporal and spatial distribution of Middle Eastern dust storm event was analyzed by models of HYSPLIT and WRF/Chem, and in- situ observations. Results: A disagreement between the occurrences of dust storms, temperature, relative humidity and rainfall, show the major source of dust storms over Ahvaz city are neighboring countries. Using HYSPLIT results, the dust particles are mainly transported from north western region of Iraq and eastern Syria to downward areas including Ahvaz city. The arrived Dust aerosols mixed with local anthropogenic emissions, led to the highest PM10 concentration of 4200 ppm. The model results were found to well reproduce temporal and spatial distribution of mineral dust concentrations according to in-situ measurements. Conclusion: The performance of WRF/Chem was acceptable for simulation of temporal and spatial distributions of dust storm events. Therefore, it can be taken as a reference in daily air quality forecasting.

Since tropospheric ozone poses a significant threat to public health, this research aims to estimate urban daily ozone levels using 2004–2021 polluting and meteorological data of three major European capitals (Madrid, Stockholm, and Rome). The resulting expression showed a goodness-of-fit of 84.99% (range 2–120 µg O ₃ /m ³ ), with an average accuracy of 0.01 µg O ₃ /m ³ (equivalent to 0.86%). According to the European legislative requirements for short-term ozone modeling (associated uncertainty < 50%), the total number of 2004–2021 daily exceedances was 0.079% (21 cases). As a novelty, the current work evaluated the performance of the suggested approach at both temporal (using data not included in the original approach) and geographical scales (applied to an area different from those used in the original approach), differing from previous studies that did not address these features. Temporally, a global r value of 0.863 was observed, also complying with the current legislative requirements for short-term ozone modeling. The RMSE, MAE, and MAPE metrics were 1.05 μg/m ³ , 1.11 μg/m ³ , and 11.16%, respectively (range 7 to 139 µg/m ³ ). Geographically, an r value of 0.921 was reached, meeting legislative requirements in 98.8% of data. RSME, MAE, and MAPE values of 1.79 µg/m ³ , 3.20 µg/m ³ , and 12.80% were observed. As a potential limitation, reanalysis datasets were used instead of independent observational data. Despite this, a validated, easy-to-implement approach for estimating daily urban ozone levels using satellite data is provided, reducing uncertainty due to limited information, which could complement European Legislative directives on short-term ambient air ozone modeling.