ALBERT

Description: Nitrate is a common pollutant in surface water and groundwater of agricultural areas. It is essential to monitor this pollutant in groundwater, especially when it is used for drinking purposes without treatment. The present study was carried out in an intensively irrigated area which forms a part of Nalgonda district, Andhra Pradesh, India where groundwater meets all the water needs of the rural population living in this area. The objective was to assess the spatiotemporal variation in the concentration of nitrate in groundwater and soil. Based on the analysis of 496 groundwater samples collected from 45 wells over a period of 2 years from March 2008 to January 2010 by sampling every 2 months, it was observed that groundwater in 242 km 2 of the total 724 km 2 area had nitrate above the maximum permissible limit of 45 mg/l for drinking purposes. Nitrate concentration in groundwater showed a positive relation with potassium, chloride, and sulfate, indicating their source from fertilizers. Reasons for the high concentration of nitrate in domestic areas were the dumping of animal wastes and leakage from septic tanks. The pH of the soil samples showed that most of the area had basic soil. Apart from pH, organic carbon, available phosphorous, available potassium, ammoniacal nitrogen, and nitrate nitrogen were also analyzed in the 97 soil samples.

Description: Nearly 108-km lengths of Mersin shores are composed of natural beaches. The region is located between major tourist centers. In the future, this region is thought to be built with a great number of tourist facilities. Turkey’s largest seaport, Ataş refinery (Mersin International Port) is located in Mersin. Recently, Mersin is becoming of great importance to Turkey as the latter plans to construct its second nuclear power plant in the region. Therefore, as nuclear power plants are built to withstand environmental hazards, it is very important to analyze the seismic risk of the areas where the nuclear power plant will be constructed. The region is located between the East Anatolian Fault Zone and Center Anatolian Fault Zone. Based on the Turkey Earthquake Regions Map, Mersin is divided into second-, third-, and fourth-degree earthquake regions. In this study, we sampled earthquakes of magnitude of 4.0 or greater between 01 Jan 1900 and 31 Dec 2010 in the area; seismic hazard of Mersin province was estimated with probabilistic and statistical methods. The study area was selected as the coordinates between 36.03° and 37.42° North and 32.57° and 35.16° East. On the study area, different scaled magnitude values in the last 110 years converted to a common scale (Mw) and earthquake catalog was re-compiled and also seismic sources that may affect the area was determined. In this study, the seismic hazards of the region were obtained using the methods of probability and statistics. This study used three different attenuation relationships. Using the attenuation relationships suggested by Boore et al. (Seismol Res Lett 68(1):128–153, 1997 ) and Kalkan and Gülkan (Earthquake Spectra 20:1111–1138, 2004 ), the largest ground acceleration which corresponds to a recurrence period of 475 years was found as 0.08–0.09 g and Akkar and Çağnan (Bull Seismol Soc Am 100 6:2978–2995, 2010 ), 0.04 g for bedrock at the central district. When computing for seismic hazard curves, Mut district appears to have a greater seismic hazard compared with other districts. Moreover, according to the attenuation relationships, seismic hazard curves corresponding to a recurrence period of 475 years were obtained for the Mersin Central, Mut, Erdemli, Çamlıyayla, and Tarsus districts.

Description: This research work has an objective to determine the effective variables in socioeconomic category of Integrated Water Resources Management for Saf-Saf river basin characterized by fast growing demand of urban and rural populations and the demand of economic sectors including industry and agriculture. In this paper, the artificial neural network models were used to model and predict the relationship between water resources mobilization and socioeconomic variables in the Saf-Saf river basin. The study area chosen is Saf-Saf river basin and real data were collected from 30 municipalities for reference year 2010. The results indicate that the feed-forward multilayer perceptron models with back-propagation are useful tools to define and prioritize the most effective variable on water resources mobilization and use. The model evaluation shows that the correlation coefficients are more than 94 % for training, verification, and testing data. The model aims to link the water resources mobilization and driving forces variables with the objective to strengthen the Integrated Water Resources Management approach.

Description: Gazestan phosphate ore deposit (Central Iran) is an apatite deposit which is instrumental in selecting the method of excavation. The position of fault systems and the condition of rock quality also play a role in the method used for mineral resources and ore reserves estimation. Conversely, the Rock Quality Designation (RQD) is a parameter that provides a quantitative judgment of rock mass quality obtained from drill cores. This factor can be applied to detect the fractured zones which occur due to fault systems. Additionally, the faulted areas can be determined by surface geological map and a few by core drilling. Some of the faulted areas are not distinguishable in the surface and are covered by soils, especially within 3D modeling and visualization. In this study, an attempt has been made to establish a relationship between the RQD percentages which were geostatistically simulated and faulted areas through the region. In comparison, the results showed that low RQD domains (RQD 〈20 %) can be interpreted as fault zones; high RQD domains (RQD 〉50 %) correspond to less fractured areas, and the contact between high and low RQD domain is gradual. Therefore, this categorization of RQD domains can be incorporated to detect the faulted zones in 3D models for mine design. Based on the categorization, the uncertainty within the area was calculated to introduce two new core drilling points for the completion of this phase of exploratory grid from the fault structural viewpoint, in order to have a proper model of ore reserve to estimate. It was concluded that this procedure can be utilized for conceptual comprehension of fault trends in 3D modeling for the method selection of excavation and complete the estimation procedure phase.

Description: Morphometric analysis using remote sensing (RS) and geographical information system (GIS), in the recent study, has become an efficient method in the assessment of groundwater potential of a river basin. The present study focused on the morphometric analysis of Araniar river basin using RS and GIS techniques in the identification of groundwater potential zones for effective planning and management of groundwater resources of the basin. The study area was divided into six subbasins for the purpose of micro-level morphometric analysis. The main stream of the basin is of fifth order and drainage patterns of subbasins are mostly of dendritic and parallel type. Based on the linear, areal and relief parameters of subbasins, the groundwater potential zones of the basin were identified and the results substantiated with geomorphology map derived from RS data. The elongated shape, favourable drainage network, permeable geologic formation and low relief of the subbasins WS3, WS5 and WS6 make them the promising groundwater potential zones of Araniar river basin. The statistical analysis and overlay analysis of the morphometric parameters also indicated the subbasins WS3, WS5 and WS6 as high groundwater potential zones. The groundwater potential zone map when overlaid with groundwater fluctuation map indicated the suitable sites for artificial recharge structures.

Description: Soil erosion is one of the most serious land degradation problems and the primary environmental issue in Mediterranean regions. Estimation of soil erosion loss in these regions is often difficult due to the complex interplay of many factors such as climate, land uses, topography, and human activities. The purpose of this study is to apply the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model to predict surface runoff generation patterns and soil erosion hazard and to prioritize most degraded sub-catchment in order to adopt the appropriate management intervention. The study area is the Sarrath river catchment (1,491 km 2 ), north of Tunisia. Based on the estimated soil loss rates, the catchment was divided into four priority categories for conservation intervention. Results showed that a larger part of the watershed (90 %) fell under low and moderate soil erosion risk and only 10 % of the watershed was vulnerable to soil erosion with an estimated sediment loss exceeding 10 t ha −1  year −1 . Results indicated that spatial differences in erosion rates within the Sarrath catchment are mainly caused by differences in land cover type and gradient slope. Application of the SWAT model demonstrated that the model provides a useful tool to predict surface runoff and soil erosion hazard and can successfully be used for prioritization of vulnerable areas over semi-arid catchments.

Description: The Makran accretionary wedge has a much larger number of mud volcanoes then those reported earlier. Using high-resolution satellite images, over 70 active mud volcanoes were identified. These mud volcanoes occur within a well-defined zone; we call it the Makran zone of active mud volcanoes (MZAMV), which is parallel to the regional trend of the accretionary wedge. Mud volcanoes within the zone occur as clusters, which form linear belts parallel to the regional thrusts associated with anticlines. The MZAMV zone also includes the offshore mud volcanoes occurring in the shallow shelf area, including the recurrently emerging mud islands. Several occurrences of thick deposits of old mud volcanoes (Pleistocene or even older) are also present within this zone, which also display recognizable features that are characteristic of the fossil mud volcanoes. We propose that the MZAMV developed and evolved in response to the continued compression within the Makran accretionary wedge, which in turn, is a response of the subduction process. Mud diapirism has been an ongoing phenomena since Pleistocene or even earlier. The events of enhanced mud extrusion in mud volcanoes and/or emergence of island(s) have relevance with seismic phenomena and, therefore, may be closely monitored.

Description: Recently, new theories on underground geophysical and geochemical interactions which had been reported to occur during the preparation stages of earthquakes and the remotely measurable variations have been put to test and some warning factors were suggested as earthquake precursors. Data vendors are providing daily basis information from the earth's surface by combining remote sensing data and in situ observations. In this paper, we analyze atmospheric, oceanic, and surface changes in the ocean, coast, and land lying near the epicenters of two recent major earthquakes. The changes are studied in terms of the regional fault locations which have been reported by the U.S. Geological Survey as the shake triggering geological structures. Our detailed analyses showed anomalous increases of surface latent heat flux (SLHF) for both the earthquakes. Meaningfully limited to the geographical extents of the regional active faults, the SLHF variation patterns suggest pre-seismic activity 2–3 weeks before the main events. The agreement of these variations with abnormalities in other climatic and surface factors like relative humidity and temperature represents an unusual situation during the same period as well. Spatiotemporal variations of chlorophyll- a was also studied as another earthquake indicator. Abnormal rises in these factors are possibly caused by the formation of micro-cracks, heat production, evaporation, ionization, and upwelling of nutrient-rich water produced by pre-seismic activity prior to the main events.

Description: A complete and homogeneous magnitude earthquake catalogue spanning the period 1900 to 2010 was created. The catalogue covers the area 29° to 37.5° N and 39° to 48° E. Entries in the new earthquake catalogue were cross checked and additions made from various sources of earthquake records to ensure that repetitions are not included in this analysis. Events were considered duplicates if they had a time difference of 10 s or less and space origin difference of 0.5° or less. In a given set of duplicate events, an event, which had a magnitude and International Seismological Center source, was retained as the record of the event. The unified magnitude scale, the moment magnitude ( M w ), was applied throughout the catalogue. The M w for 18 events was reported. The M w for other events was estimated using empirical relations between m b , M s , M L , and M w . Magnitude of completeness, M c , was estimated using the maximum curvature. It was 4.3 M w . Finally, a list of 213 events from 1900 to 2010 with M w  ≥ 4.3 is presented. The list is considered complete for the period from 1962 to 2010.

Description: Dammam Dome is an oval-shaped structure that covers an area of about 500 km 2 and encompasses Al Khobar, Al Dhahran and part of Ad Dammam cities, east of Saudi Arabia. The dome characterizes by the presence of well developed fractures system that exposes at its apex and extends to its peripheries. Based on their size, trend and extent, fractures within Dammam Dome are divided into three types: regional (major) fractures, local (minor) fractures and very small size-localized fractures. This study discusses the criteria used in classifying those fractures, and the relationship of the regional (major) ones to the doming process. A model for the trends pattern of fracture is suggested for those fractures, and examined with the concentric and radial fracture pattern associated normally with dome structures. The suggested model is compatible and concordant with the dome model, which proves that the major fractures in the area are related to the dome emplacement and process. Outcomes and findings of this study are crucial for understanding the behavior and distribution of fractures associated with domes. Additionally, the suggested model of fractures and their trend pattern is important model in similar setting for hydrocarbon exploration and for any urban development and major constructions within the Dome vicinities.