The impact of COVID-19 on food security can best be understood from the downturn on agricultural and other related economic activities which were almost brought to a total halt during the pandemic. The restriction of movement/lockdown policy instituted by various governments heavily affected local and national food production as farmers could not go to their farmlands. More so, there was price gouging on raw food items as local farmers were reducing cultivation and harvest because of their safety. The lockdown also affected the transportation of food products from farms and local companies to the market and across inter-state/province borders. Additionally, many human infections traceable to disease outbreak from animal origin suggest a great risk of exposure to infectious agents by live animal farmers. In combating this menace, local food production needs to be encouraged more, while measures should be put in place to facilitate farmer's participation in government regulations on enforcing biosecurity, health standards, disease monitoring, and surveillance practices.

Leachates are said to have the capacity of polluting environmental media such as air, soil, surface and ground water. The knowledge of the composition of leachates is important to determine the dump sites that require immediate remediation attention and their effective treatment approach. This study characterizes the leachate quality of both active and closed dump sites in Port Harcourt City. Leachates were sampled from the base of the dum psites and analysed, pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), electrical conductivity and total dissolved solids were determined on the samples in-situ. While chloride, sulphate, phosphate, chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), lead, zinc, iron, chromium, copper, cadmium and nickel were analyzed in the laboratory. The sample locations were Nkpolu Junction along East-West Road (LS1), Chindah Borrow Pit, off Chindah Road, Mile 4(LS2) and Rumuepirikom Community, off Iwofe Road (LS3). Locations 1 & 3 are closed dump sites, while location 2 is an active dump site. The mean pollution indices for Locations 1, 2 & 3 include; pH (7.96, 6.55 & 7.43), BOD (mg/l) (1.24, 5.95 & 2.94), COD (mg/l) (3.10, 14.87 & 7.35) and DO (mg/l) (2.3, 0.85 & 0.56). Heavy metals analyses reveals Iron (mg/l) having the highest concentration (0.176, 0.461 & 0.253 for LS1, LS2 & LS3 respectively) which exceeds the maximum contaminant levels of 0.05 mg/l prescribed by the Federal Ministry of Environment, which is a regulatory body in Nigeria. The ratio of BOD 5 / COD was less than 0.5 for leachates from all sample locations, an indication of dump site stabilization while the pH values indicated that all sample locations in terms of age of the dump site vary partially from being young to mature in age. The study recommends continuous monitoring of leachates for the active dump site, as the concentration of individual parameters that make up the leachate is quite variable.

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Background Gas flaring in the Niger Delta releases particles which are dispersed over a wide area and have impacts on the environment and human health. The study aimed at assessing the extent of dispersion of PM10 emitted from gas flares in flow stations. Eight selected flow stations in Rivers and Bayelsa states were investigated. The concentrations of PM10 emitted from the flare stacks were monitored 60 m away from the flare stack using a hand-held Met One AEROCET 531 combined Mass Profiler and Particle Counter. Meteorological parameters such as wind speed, ambient temperature and relative humidity were monitored during the sampling campaign. PM10 and meteorological data were analysed for simple and descriptive statistics using SPSS for Windows (version 21.0). Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory Model (HYSPLIT) was adopted to predict the dispersion of PM10 from the flow stations. Results Results revealed the range concentrations of PM10 from the flow stations (FS 1–8) as 19.9 µg/m3 at FS 1 to 55.4 µg/m3 at FS 8. The maximum concentration of PM10 at FS 8 was higher than the World Health organisation limit of 50 µg/m3. The dispersion of PM10 emitted from FS 1, 4 and 7 in April 2017, had a fitting spread over Port Harcourt City. Conclusions The modeling results revealed dispersion of PM10 from the flow stations to 14 states in Nigeria. This suggests possible detrimental health and environmental effects of PM10 on residents in the identified states.

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