ALBERT

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 6 Sarah Cornell, Cat Downy ESS2010 was the first Open Science Conference of the international collaborative initiative AIMES, and was convened and organized by QUEST, the UK's directed research programme for Earth System science. The conference showcased advances in Earth system modelling, deploying observations and process understanding to develop more quantitative and predictive understanding of the interactions of the climate system, the biosphere and the anthroposphere. These tools extend understanding of the system dynamics of biogeochemical cycles, and give perspectives on the relationships between climate, ecosystems and human needs. As Earth system science is a global research endeavour, and its remit has important societal and policy implications, a recurrent theme in the conference was the responsibility of scientists working on knowledge integration in the global environmental change context.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 4 Ma Chun, Ju Mei-ting, Zhang Xiao-chun, Li Hong-yuan Analyses of energy consumption and carbon emissions in Tianjin are ways to understand the dynamics of developing cities in China. Using carbon emission calculation methodology recommended by IPCC, the amount of energy consumption and carbon emissions in Tianjin were calculated from 1995 to 2007. The results showed that the energy consumption structure in Tianjin relied on coal. Annual carbon emission was 26.37 million tons with growth of 4.48% per year; Sc (carbon emission per GDP) reduced year by year, and Se (carbon emission per energy consumption) decreased overall. We also proposed countermeasures to reduce carbon emissions from energy consumption.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 10, Part B Yanhong Yan, Zhining Jia, Yulin Yang The polytetrafluroethylene (PTFE) polymer-based nanocomposites filled with nanoscale lamellar structure expanded graphite (nano-EG) and reinforced with different nanoparticles, such as nano-Al 2 O 3 , nano-copper, nano-SiO 2 and nano-TiO 2 , were prepared by using cold briquetting and hot-press sintering technologies. The quasi-static tensile experiments and dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DTMA) were carried out. The results showed that the mechanical properties of these nanocomposites stronger depend on the variety of nanoparticles. Stress-displacement and stress relaxation curves indicate that theses composites are typical viscoelastic materials. However, due to the addition of nano-EG and other nano-particles, some composites showed relatively brittle to some extent. These research findings are believed to be helpful for providing practical guide in harsh environments.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 11, Part C Liu Hongmin Crew's health and productivity is strongly affected by cabins’ thermal environment. This paper focuses on the numerical simulation of the indoor thermal environment in air-conditioned vessel cabins. The original airconditioning system of the cabin was analyzed. Three modified air-conditioning systems with different air-supply outlet locations and under-supply air-conditioning system were put forward for optimization. Air temperature, air velocity and PMV distribution were discussed under Airpak simulation. The results show that under-supply airconditioning system has good performance with little eddies and can contribute to energy saving. Indoor air temperature with under-supply air-conditioning system was 2∼4 lower than that °C with original air-conditioning system, leading to lower predicted mean vote (PMV).

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 8 Parvinder Singh Sandhu

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 10, Part C Xin Zhou, Ziru Lian, Jiangtao Wang, Liju Tan, Zhichao Zhao Estrogens (estrone, estradiol and estriol) and synthetic compound (ethynyl estradiol) in the water and sediment of Licun River-Jiaozhou Bay area in Qingdao were monitored. Estrogens in waters were concentrated using modified C- 18 SPE cartridges, and estrogens in sediments were extracted by liquid-solid extraction. Silane derivatives of the extracted and concentrated estrogens were analyzed by GC-MS. The concentration of estrogens ranged from ND (below the detection limit) to 180 ng/L in waters and ND to 10.8 colong/kg (dry weight) in sediment. The concentrations of estrogen in river water were higher than those in seawater during the monitoring periods. The distribution of estrogen concentration along Licun river suggested that estrogens were different with distance from the respective effluent sites. The highest concentrations were detected at station 5 which directly receives huge quantities of pollutants from adjacent rivers containing large amounts of farming and industrial wastewater.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 9 Jean-Christophe Lata, Sébastien Barot, Gérard Lacroix The International Congress “Ecological Engineering; from concepts to applications”, Paris, was held on 2-4 December, 2009 [3]. These three days were dedicated to the exploration of new breakthroughs in ecological engineering and reflections on the way to develop the field and ground it on sound ecological and conceptual bases

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 6 Cat Downy, Sarah Cornell

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 11, Part B Shuzhou Wang, Bo Meng Neural networks with good nonlinear mapping abilities can be applied to build simulation model of helicopter. But they have some difficulties such as hardness of selecting network structure, slow convergence speed, local minimum, and over-fitting. To avoid above problems, a modeling method for dynamic nonlinear system based on support vector machine was proposed. This method was applied to build simulation model of helicopter. Compared with neural network model, SVM model possess some advantages such as simple structure, fast convergence speed and high generalization ability.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 10, Part C Xu Shujian, Wang Tao The grain size records of loess-paleosol deposit in China are some of the most important terrestrial records of the Quaternary. It systematically carried out fieldwork on loess profile of Tuoji Island on Miaodao Islands and Changyi profile on the Laizhou Bay plain, analyzed grain size of 220 and 86 samples respectively. It shows the grain size of loess in Tuoji Island profile coarser than Changyi profile. The environment-sensitive size fractions of Tuoji Island and Changyi loess section respectively are 89.1-100.0colonm and 70.8-79.4colonm, by analyzing grain-size class vs. standard deviation values method. The changes of grain size characteristics of loess-paleosol recorded in different sections implicated the much plentiful materials in the Changyi profile on Laizhou Bay plain than Tuoji profile on Miaodao Islands.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 11, Part C Zhiming Fang, Xiaochun Li This paper presents a preliminary assessment of the potential for CO2 geological storage in Chongqing, China. Currently, there are about 116 large stationary CO2 point emission sources which emit 85.57 MtCO2/yr totally. These stationary sources are mainly belonged to four industries: cement, power plant, iron & steel and synthetic ammonia industries. In the three kinds of geological storage formations, namely, deep saline formations (DSFs), unmineable coalbeds and depleted gas fields, the total basin-scale theoretical storage capacities of CO2 reach 24.36 Gt, equivalent to about 285 times of the annual total CO2 emissions in Chongqing. The DSFs have the largest potential storage capacity accounting for 98% of the total storage capacities. The matching results between CO2 point emission sources and candidate geological storage formations show that 94.8% of the point emission sources (accounting for 97.1% of annual total emissions) can find at least one candidate geological storage formation in its adjacent areas. This means that, for Chongqing, the CO2 transport cost is likely very low. The research findings indicate that there is great potential for CO2 geological storage technology to deploy in Chongqing and for this technology to deliver profound and sustaining impacts on reducing CO2 emissions and developing low-carbon economy in Chongqing. This preliminary study is expected to stimulate more researches, critical thinking and policy actions to promote positive measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions so as to mitigate the impact of global climate change, as well as to set a good example for other regions in China.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 7 M.D. Ruiz-Medina, R.M. Espejo Montes Functional Statistics provides a suitable framework for the analysis of large dimensional data sets. In this paper, we consider the spatial autoregressive functional series (SARH(1)) framework. This framework allows the incorporation of spatial interaction to the statistical analysis of functional data (see Ruiz-Medina [1] , [2] ). The SARH(1) model is fitted to the average ocean temporal temperature profiles, collected in different spatial locations, during the years 1998, 1999 and 2000. We have used the public oceanographic bio-optical database, The World-wide Ocean Optics Database (WOOD). The SARH(1) plug-in extrapolator is then computed, from the previously derived infinite-dimensional projection parameter estimator.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 3 Fabio Sigrist, Hans R. Künsch, Werner A. Stahel A spatio-temporal model for precipitation is presented. It is assumed that precipitation follows a censored and power-transformed normal distribution. Through a regression term, precipitation is linked to covariates. Spatial and temporal dependencies are accounted for by a latent Gaussian variable that follows a Markovian temporal evolution combined with spatially correlated innovations. Such a specification allows for nonseparable covariances in space and time. Further, the Markovian structure yields computational efficiency and it exploits in a natural way the unidirectional flow of time. In addition, the model is space as well as time resolution consistent. The model is applied to three-hourly Swiss rainfall data, collected at 26 stations.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 11, Part B Shuzhou Wang, Bo Meng Support Vector Machine (SVM) is a new modeling method. It has shown good performance in many field and mostly outperformed neural networks. The parameter selection should to be done before training SVM. Modified particle swarm optimization (POS) was adpoted to select parameters of SVM. It is shown by simulation that the modified POS algorithm can derive a set of optimal parameters of SVM. Compared with neural networks, SVM model possess some advantages such as simple structure, fast convergence speed with high generalization ability.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 11, Part A Li Xiaonian, Zhu Yi, Zhang Fuhao, Liu Xiaodong According to domestic and foreign rural geographic information system construction, this article points out the problems of domestic new socialist countryside construction. Combined with the reality of Xinjiang new socialist countryside construction, it has constructed the geographic information platform of new socialist countryside comprehensive services, which is easier to realize farmland protection, cadastre management, central village plan and many other basic services in rural areas, and provided reliable and real-time information technology services for Xinjiang new socialist countryside construction.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 9 Lino José Alvarez-Vázquez, Aurea Martínez, Miguel Ernesto Vázquez-Méndez, Miguel Angel Vilar The main objective of this work is showing how numerical simulation and optimal control theory can be useful tools in practical ecological engineering. We take attention into diadromous fish (salmon, trout, eel…) and their river migrations, and particularly, we focus on fishways, hydraulic structures that enable fish to overcome stream obstructions as dams or weirs. We use mathematical modelling to formulate the problems of design and management of a fishway providing a good hydraulic performance for fish. By solving these problems for a standard vertical slot fishway, we can observe that controlling the flux of inflow water is a useful technique for the management of an already built fishway, but a correct shape design is mandatory in order to guarantee a correct hydraulic performance, especially for a new fishway.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 5 Dacheng Liu, Ning Li, Xianchun Tan, Xiaoou Yang, Li Wang, Jianbing Liu Chinese government committed to reducing carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 40% to 45% by 2020. As the capital and one of the biggest cites, Beijing expected to both keep higher GDP growth than average and cut unit GDP carbon emission, and has to adjust the relevant energy strategy in near future. The paper analysis the characteristics of energy supply and energy consumption in Beijing, and setups the economic-energy-environment-oriented reference energy system (RES), selects MARKAL as the optimal model and constructs districted multi-period linear programming matrix, which including 15 energy carriers, 4 energy processes, 17 energy conversions, and 18 energy end-use sets. Furthermore, the paper designs 11 scenarios in various pollute emission restrictions, and establishes the total economic cost as the optimize target, the low-carbon emission as main restriction, to obtain the suitable energy supply structure and end-use technology structure. At last, we have the conclusion that Beijing can attach the demands of cutting carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 45% under the scheduled GDP growth.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 4 Elena Paoletti, Tommaso Bardelli, Gianluca Giovannini, Leonella Pecchioli The Urban Forest Effects (UFORE) model, a computer model designed to use tree allometric, air pollution and meteorological data to statistically estimate urban forest characteristics and various urban forest functions, was applied to the main park in the city of Florence, Italy (Cascine Park), in 1985 and 2004, in order to study how the natural and man-made evolution of the park affected its ability to control air quality. Plant data were for both the years, while climate and pollutant data were for year 2004 only, in order to remove the variability due to changes in the atmospheric variables. The results show that the forest growth compensated the losses due to cuttings and damages by extreme climatic events, so that the overall amount of pollutants removed from the air did not change from 1985 to 2004 (72.4–69.0 kg/ha). In contrast, the amount of carbon storing and biogenic volatile organic compound emission decreased over time, because of a reduction in the number of large trees and of isoprene-emitting individuals, but the results were very variable plot by plot. The species were ranked according to their ability of controlling air quality. These data can be used as a decision tool for establishing cuttings and new plantings in urban planning and their effects on air quality under Mediterranean climate conditions.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 10, Part C Liu-Zhihong, Yu-Jinhui, Zhang-Deng Under the low-carbon time of globalization, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region as the one of the many provinces in western China, it is necessary that to open Beibu Gulf for getting sustainable development in the new time and situation. Exactly the basic way for the development is the strategy of sustainable development that of construction Beibu Gulf economic zone consist of low-carbon, ecological and harmonious. With the development and construction of Beibu Gulf, a lot of towns are stepping into the progress of urbanization one by one. However, in the background for urbanization of ecological and low-carbon, study on low-carbon building and ecological city construction in harmonious Beibu Gulf culture that would be necessary and of great significance.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 5 Shaoqing Chen, Bin Chen, Meirong Su The importance of addressing cumulative environmental impact of large development projects on rivers has been increasingly highlighted. Consideration to potential impact pathways may be difficult, however, without appropriate analytical methods. By introducing ecological network model, this paper focuses on the quantification of the cause-effect relationships inherent the cumulative effects of dam construction from a holistic perspective. With Lancang river of Longitudinal Range-Gorge Region (LRGR) as an example, the risk-based interaction instead of the conventional energy or material flow of ecological network model has been created to conceptualize the cumulative effects network model. Based on this model, the network structural and functional analysis were adjusted for the assessment of potential eco-environmental impact within the ecosystem, thus demonstrating how the risk-based ecological network analysis can be used to characterize the holistic cumulative effects of dams on the temporal and spatial scale.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 7 Daniel K. Heersink, Reinhard Furrer Modern compaction rollers monitor soil properties by observing vibrational characteristics of the soil. A vibrating drum traverses the compaction site measuring soil stiffness and collecting GPS coordinates that are together termed roller measurement values (RMVs). These RMVs can be modeled as a random spatial field and additively decomposed into any sensible combination of mean terms, spatial terms, spline terms, and ridge regression terms. The goal of this modeling is to implement intelligent compaction for quality control and quality assurance purposes. Proper modeling of such data (stationarity, anisotropy,.) is then of paramount concern. Each layer of the compaction site can be modeled by the n-vector y = Xβ+α+γ+ ɛ, where Xβ is a low-order (linear) polynomial trend, α is a mean term estimated using ridge regression or splines modeling the large-scale variation, γ is a (zero-mean Gaussian) spatial process modeling the small-scale variation, and ɛ is the noise. Here, X is the (n × p) design matrix with rank p. There are many general approaches to working with such an additive mixed model, including a backfitting procedure for maximum-likelihood estimation and generalized cross-validation. Due to computational complexity of maximum-likelihood estimation a backfitting procedure, Furrer and Sain (2009) [1] , was extended to the more general models used here and employed in the estimation. The extended backfitting procedure has been shown to converge and the iterative least-squares estimates have been shown to converge to the generalized least-squares estimate. A simulation study has been conducted to analyze estimates of this general model using a penalized likelihood and generalized cross-validation (GCV) approach as well. Results of the cross-validation study using a spline structure indicate there are some random fields that can be generated that do not have a minimum GCV.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 4 S.M. Salim, R. Buccolieri, A. Chan, S. Di Sabatino, S.C. Cheah This paper presents numerical simulations of the aerodynamic effects of trees on the flow field and dispersion of trafficoriginated pollutants in an urban street canyon of W/H = 1 with a perpendicular approach flow. Large Eddy Simulation (LES) is employed for the investigation and is validated against wind tunnel (WT) experiment. Comparisons is made between an empty street canyon and one containing avenue-like tree planting of pore volume, Pvol = 96%. In the presence of trees, both measurements and simulations show considerably larger pollutant concentrations near the leeward wall and slightly lower concentrations near the windward wall in comparison to the tree-free case.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 10, Part B Shuo Zhou, Zongxing Chen, Xiaoyang Liu, Hao Tang In this paper we focus on augment reality (AR) used in mobile device and analysis advantages of touch-screen devices in facilitating user experience for elder people. We developed a virtual system on symbian^3 platform considering the characteristic of elder people. The assessment of the system at the end suggests the potential of mobile AR for elders.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 6 Muhammad Afzal, Martin G. Mansell, Alexandre S. Gagnon The objective of this research is to analyse temporal changes in historic rainfall variability across Scotland using different measures of variability. The CUSUM and sequential Mann-Kendall test applied to records from 28 weather stations with up to 80 years of daily precipitation data reveal the occurrence of abrupt changes in the rainfall trends. Most weather stations show a turning point between 1978 and 1985, although some stations situated in Eastern Scotland have more than one turning point. The temporal changes in rainfall variability across Scotland are presented using a number of measures of variability.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 9 Adil Baghli, Philippe Thiévent R&D activities at Egis Environnement (a civil engineering-based environmental consultancy) facilitated the development of OptiFlux, a spatial analysis tool designed to predict and visualize the effects of implementing a linear infrastructure upon wildlife habitats. It also tests the relevance of positioning fauna passages to ensure the restoration of habitat connectivity and therefore allows the optimization of the number and location of potential fauna passages. OptiFlux makes use of habitat quality maps which correlated with ecological requirements of each studied species. The concept is based on the evaluation of the spatial distribution of wildlife in their natural habitats. It also allows the evaluation of the impact of a project that modifies landscape structures and contributes to territory fragmentation. OptiFlux is a project optimization instrument which helps in the decisionmaking process. Major applications are: • Identification of routes with the least impact on wildlife population fluxes and their habitats, • Optimization of the number and location of fauna passages for the benefit of wildlife and reduction of the conflict points between infrastructures (road, highway, railway) and ecological networks, • Simulation of the positive effects of the proposed fauna passages or biotopes (amphibian ponds, for example) for a better choice of installations and for a better reconnection of the fragmented habitats.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 11, Part C Zhou Yan, Jing Guang-e, Liu Xiao-hui, Li Qing-ling Theoretical research and numerical simulation for ventilation properties of solar chimney with vertical collector are performanced and they are compared with experimental results. Results show that: there are many factors to affect solar chimney ventilation that include heat collection height and width, solar radiation intensity, inlet and outlet area ratio of chimney and air inlet velocity, etc. When the collector height is increased, chimney ventilation is getting higher; but the ventilation increases slowly even decreases; the ventilation increases first and then decreases as the growing of the air layer thickness under the same chimney height and width; there exists an optimal ratio between heat collector height and width which makes the ventilation largest; considering the urban architecture image and the influence of the air layer thickness on chimney ventilation, the best air layer thickness is between 0.2m and 0.4m. Besides, the airflow temperature in solar chimney increases with chimney height in certain solar radiation intensity. It is consistent with the theoretical analysis and simulation results.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 8

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 10, Part A Ye Yun, Xu Xi-shan, Qi Zhi-chang To protect critical resources in networked environments, it is important to quantify the likelihood of potential multi- step attacks in attack graphs. Aimed at the problems that probabilistic incorrect computing caused by shared dependencies in nodes, a methodology for security risk analysis that is based on the model of attack graphs and the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) was presented, and the problem of probabilistic incorrect computing was solved successfully by proposing the probabilistic computing approach of accurate calculation and approximate calculation, While ensuring the accuracy of the probability of attack graph-based nodes, quickly Calculated the probability of each node, which can be adapted to a large-scale network. Reasonableness and effectiveness of proposed method was verified in the simulation. Compared with the related research, our approach can be adapted to a more complex attack graph, and had good scalability.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 11, Part A Xin Jin, Xin Zhou Electric power enterprises are one important part of pillar industries in our country. There are many factors to cause risks which might bring trouble and disaster, so that we ought to manage those risks so as to reduce and avoid those risks, therefore we need to evaluate the risks which could happen. In this paper, in order to evaluate the risks of some thermal power enterprises in East China which are belong to one power group, we use text content analysis method to analyze a lot of risk exploration reports to build risk evaluation index system and every index’ weight, then evaluate risk level for every risk factor with AHP, and discuss the risk comprehensive evaluation of enterprises.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 8 Suqin Li, Xue Zhang Reverse osmosis approach was used to dispose pulp and paper wastewater from a papermaking company. To meet the requirements of reverse osmosis membranes for water quality, a proper pretreatment had been done before raw water into RO membranes. A new efficient composite flocculant named PAFSSB had been used in the pre-treatment of pulp and paper wastewater. In the paper, the results showed that the treatment effect of PAFSSB was better, COD content was down to 10 mg/L and COD removal rate was up to 75%. The pre-treatment process was simplified and processing costs were reduced.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 3 Sarah E. Nevillea, M.P. Wand We devise a variational Bayes algorithm for fast approximate inference in Bayesian Generalized Extreme Value additive model analysis. Such models are useful for flexibly assessing the impact of continuous predictor variables on sample extremes. The new methodology allows large Bayesian models to be fitted and assessed without the significant computing costs of Monte Carlo methods. © 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Alfred Stein.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 10, Part A Wang Yong, Liu Yanping, Su Youpo According to the GPS data provided by International GNSS Service, the author adopted the software of GAMIT/GLOBK to solve the GPS data. The deformation of GPS stations’ coordinates during the Mw 9.0 Japan Earthquake was achieved which was utilized to infer physical processes at earthquake sources. It was computed six GPS stations’ data by GAMIT/GLOBK software and analyzed the GPS stations’ coordinate series. The changes of six stations were subsiding in the Vertical direction, while the changes of each station were moving north in the earthquake time in the North direction. The change values among KGNI, TSK2 and TSKB in North and Vertical direction reached 0.4m, or nearly 0.5m. It can be concluded that KGNI, TSK2 and TSKB were greater changes in the earthquake, which were close to the earthquake epicenter.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Geoscience Frontiers Jinyang Zhang, Changqian Ma, Zhenbing She The Erlangmiao granite intrusion is located in the eastern part of the East Qinling Orogen. The granite contains almost 99 vol.% felsic minerals with accessory garnet, muscovite, biotite, zircon, and Fe-Ti oxide. Garnet is the dominant accessory mineral, shows zoned texture, and is rich in w (FeO) (14.13%–16.09%) and w (MnO) (24.21%–27.44%). The rocks have high SiO 2 , alkalis, FeO t /MgO, TiO 2 /MgO and low Al 2 O 3 , CaO with w (Na 2 O)/ w (K 2 O)〉 1. Their Rb, Ga, Ta, Nb, Y, and Yb contents are high and Sr, Ba, Eu, Zr, P, and Ti contents are low. These features indicate that the Erlangmiao granite is a highly evolved metaluminous A-type. Garnet crystallized at the expense of biotite from the MnO-rich evolved melt after fractionation of biotite, plagioclase, K-feldspar, zircon, apatite, and ilmenite. The relatively high initial 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratios (0.706–0.708), low and negative ɛ Nd (120 Ma) values (−6.6 to −9.0), and old Nd model ages (1.5–1.7 Ga) suggest that the rocks were probably formed by partial melting of the Paleoproterozoic granitic gneisses from the basement, with participation of depleted mantle in an extensional setting. Graphical Abstract Highlights ► FeO-, MnO-rich garnet crystallized at the expense of biotite from MnO-rich granitic magma. ► Granite formed from a highly evolved metaluminous A-type magma. ► Granite magma derived through the melting of Paleoproterozoic granitic gneisses.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Geoscience Frontiers Sanghoon Kwon, Gautam Mitra The map expression of “abrupt” changes in lateral stratigraphic level of a thrust fault has been traditionally interpreted to be a result of the presence of (1) a lateral (or oblique) thrust-ramp, or (2) a frontal ramp with displacement gradient, and/or (3) a combination of these geometries. These geometries have been used to interpret the structures near transverse zones in fold-thrust belts (FTB). This contribution outlines an alternative explanation that can result in the same map pattern by lateral variations in stratigraphy along the strike of a low angle thrust fault. We describe the natural example of the Leamington transverse zone, which marks the southern margin of the Pennsylvanian–Permian Oquirrh basin with genetically related lateral stratigraphic variations in the North American Sevier FTB. Thus, the observed map pattern at this zone is closely related to lateral stratigraphic variations along the strike of a horizontal fault. Even though the present-day erosional level shows the map pattern that could be interpreted as a lateral ramp, the observed structures along the Leamington zone most likely share the effects of the presence of a lateral (or oblique) ramp, lateral stratigraphic variations along the fault trace, and the displacement gradient. Graphical Abstract Highlights ► Map expression of “abrupt” changes in lateral stratigraphic level of a thrust fault. ► New interpretation along a frontal-ramp without vertical-axis rotations. ► “Abrupt” changes controlled by lateral (or oblique) ramp, stratigraphy along a fault, and displacement gradients on a frontal ramp.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Geoscience Frontiers Y. Srinivas, A. Stanley Raj, D.Hudson Oliver, D. Muthuraj, N. Chandrasekar The applications of intelligent techniques have increased exponentially in recent days to study most of the non-linear parameters. In particular, the behavior of earth resembles the non-linearity applications. An efficient tool is needed for the interpretation of geophysical parameters to study the subsurface of the earth. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) perform certain tasks if the structure of the network is modified accordingly for the purpose it has been used. The three most robust networks were taken and comparatively analyzed for their performance to choose the appropriate network. The single-layer feed-forward neural network with the back propagation algorithm is chosen as one of the well-suited networks after comparing the results. Initially, certain synthetic data sets of all three-layer curves have been taken for training the network, and the network is validated by the field datasets collected from Tuticorin Coastal Region (78°7'30"E and 8°48'45"N), Tamil Nadu, India. The interpretation has been done successfully using the corresponding learning algorithm in the present study. With proper training of back propagation networks, it tends to give the resistivity and thickness of the subsurface layer model of the field resistivity data concerning the synthetic data trained earlier in the appropriate network. The network is trained with more Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) data, and this trained network is demonstrated by the field data. Groundwater table depth also has been modeled. Graphical Abstract Highlights ► Vertical Electrical Sounding data in the Tuticorin region has been modeled for ground water occurrence and saline water intrusion. ► Artificial Neural Network program using Feed forward back propagation algorithm gains more advantage over conventional methods. ► Error percentage on comparing with the conventional method makes the program to extend on different type of field data. ► Synthetic Memory driven model forms the frame work of the algorithm to support any kind of rough field data. ► Saline water intrusion and ground water occurrence can be very well studied with well defined sub surface structural modeling.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Geoscience Frontiers Dedong Li, Yuwang Wang, Jingbin Wang, Zhaohua Luo, Jiulong Zhou, Zongfeng Yang, Cui Liu According to the metallogenic theory by transmagmatic fluid (TMF), one magmatic intrusion is a channel of ore-bearing fluids, but not their source. Therefore, it is possible to use TMF’s ability for injection into and for escaping from the magmatic intrusion to evaluate its ore-forming potential. As the ore-bearing fluids cannot effectively inject into the magmatic intrusion when the magma fully crystallized, the cooling time and rates viscosity varied can be used to estimate the minimum critical thickness of the intrusion. One dimensional heat transfer model is used to determine the cooling time for three representative dikes of different composition (granite porphyry, quartz diorite and diabase) in the Shihu gold deposit. It is also estimated the rates viscosity varied in these time interval. We took the thickness of dike at the intersection of the cooling time – thickness curve and the rates viscosity varied versus thickness curve as the minimum critical thickness. For the ore-bearing fluids effectively injecting into the magma, the minimum critical thicknesses for the three representative dikes are 33.45 m for granite porphyry, 8.22 m for quartz diorite and 1.02 m for diabase, indicating that ore-bearing dikes must be thicker than each value. These results are consistent with the occurrence of ore bodies, and thus they could be applied in practice. Based on the statistical relationship between the length and the width of dikes, these critical thicknesses are used to compute critical areas: 0.0003–0.0016 km 2 for diabase, 0.014–0.068 km 2 for quartz diorite and 0.011–0.034 km 2 for granite porphyry. This implies that ore-bearing minor intrusions have varied areas corresponding to their composition. The numerical simulation has provided the theoretical threshold of exposed thickness and area of the ore-bearing intrusion. These values can be used to determine the ore-forming potentials of dikes. Graphical Abstract Highlights ► Heat transfer and viscosity models are used to determine cooling time and viscosity variation for dikes, respectively. ► Minimum critical thicknesses of three representative dikes for ore-bearing fluid injection are computed. ► Minimum critical areas of ore-bearing dikes are estimated in view of their ratios of length/ width.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Geoscience Frontiers Wei Ju, Guiting Hou, Le Li, Fangfeng Xiao This paper presents the end Late Paleozoic tectonic stress field in the southern edge of Junggar Basin by interpreting stress-response structures (dykes, folds, faults with slickenside and conjugate joints). The direction of the maximum principal stress axes is interpreted to be NW–SE (about 325°), and the accommodated motion among plates is assigned as the driving force of this tectonic stress field. The average value of the stress index R ′ is about 2.09, which indicates a variation from strike-slip to compressive tectonic stress regime in the study area during the end Late Paleozoic period. The reconstruction of the tectonic field in the southern edge of Junggar Basin provides insights into the tectonic deformation processes around the southern Junggar Basin and contributes to the further understanding of basin evolution and tectonic settings during the culmination of the Paleozoic. Graphical Abstract Highlights ► The direction of the maximum principal stress axes is interpreted to be NW–SE. ► The stress regime is a variation from strike-slip to compressive. ► The accommodated motion among plates may be the cause of this stress field.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Geoscience Frontiers Liu He, Chuanlun L. Zhang, Hailiang Dong, Bin Fang, Genhou Wang Isoprenoidal glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (iGDGTs) from the Gulu hot springs (23–83.6 °C, pH 〉 7) and Yangbajing hot springs (80–128 °C, pH 〉 7) were analyzed in order to investigate the distribution of archaeal lipids among different hot springs in Tibet. A soil sample from Gulu was incubated at different temperatures and analyzed for changes in iGDGTs to help evaluate whether surrounding soil may contribute to the iGDGTs in hot springs. The sources of bacterial GDGTs (bGDGTs) in these hot springs were also investigated. The results revealed different profiles of iGDGTs between Gulu and Yangbajing hot springs. Core iGDGTs and polar iGDGTs also presented different patterns in each hot spring. The PCA analysis showed that the structure of polar iGDGTs can be explained by three factors and suggested multiple sources of these compounds. Bivariate correlation analysis showed significant positive correlations between polar and core bGDGTs, suggesting the in situ production of bGDGTs in the hot springs. Furthermore, in the soil incubation experiment, temperature had the most significant influence on concentration of bGDGTs rather than iGDGTs, and polar bGDGTs had greater variability than core bGDGTs with changing temperature. Our results indicated that soil input had little influence on the composition of GDGTs in Tibetan hot springs. On the other hand, ring index and TEX 86 values were both positively correlated with incubation temperature, suggesting that the structure of archaeal lipids changed in response to varying temperature during incubation. Graphical Abstract Highlights ► Glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs) are determined from Tibetan hot springs and soil. ► Archaeal and bacterial GDGTs are produced in situ in the hot spring. ► Soil incubation experiments show a positive correlation between ring index or TEX 86 and incubation temperature.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Geoscience Frontiers, Volume 3, Issue 2, March 2012, Pages I-II [No author name available]

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Makoto Ooba, Tsuyoshi Fujita, Motoyuki Mizuochi, Shogo Murakami, Qinxue Wang, Kunio Kohata Forest ecosystem services (ES), including water resources, carbon sequestration, nitrogen absorption, timber production, and sediment production in the Ise Bay basin, were estimated using a process-based biogeochemical forest model (the BGC-ES model and the RUSLE). This model was proposed and studied in the Yahagi river basin by some of the authors. To evaluate the ES on a 5-km-mesh scale, simulations from 1960 to 2040 were carried out under the following scenarios: an artificial forest under standard management (FM) and under forest management abounded from 1990 (AFM). Forest management practices strongly affected carbon sequestration and timber volume compared to other ES related to forest area.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Wei Dong, Jianmin Shu, Ping He, Guangwen Ma, Ming Dong Wetland ecosystem occupies an important position in the global carbon cycle with a strong ability of carbon storage and fixation. On the basis of field investigation and laboratory measurement, in the paper, the standing biomass and primary production of wetland Phragmites australis in Baiyangdian were study, and its ability of carbon storage and fixation in accordance with the principle of photosynthesis was measured, and then the potential ability of carbon storage from the perspective of efficiency for solar energy utilization was discussed. The results show that carbon storage of wetland Phragmites australis is large in Baiyangdian with 5.81 kg • m -2 , 7.14 kg • m -2 and 8.72 kg • m -2 respectively; carbon fixation is also very large with 2.54 kg • m -2 , 3.12 kg • m -2 and 3.81 kg • m -2 respectively. In addition, the underground biomass is larger than the aboveground biomass, and the ratio of the two is 2.38-3.30 with the average of 2.90. The underground carbon storage is nearly 3 times as much as the aboveground carbon storage. Wetland Phragmites australis in Baiyangdian has a strong ability of carbon fixation with 1.17 kg • m -2 • a -1 , 1.49 kg • m -2 • a-1 and 1.76 kg • m -2 • a-1 respectively, which is 1.7-3.4 times as much as the average ability of carbon fixation of the national terrestrial plants and 2.0- 4.0 times of that of the global plants.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Rasoul Ghorbani, Ahad Ebrahimpour, Somayeh Noshad Most of the recreational places in Iran have constructed based on physical principles with less attention to user's mental and behavioral needs. Whereas these needs effect on increasing the number of users of these places; in this paper we attempt to analysis the motivation of users with Seeking-escaping and Pull and Push theory. At first we survey the people's principle motive of using the nature of Oun-Ebn-Ali recreational place with these models and then, the relationships between perceived emotions as intermediary and improved the quality of life as final reward, have evaluated. The results show that, the users go to Oun-Ebn-Ali natural place for escaping from pressure of everyday life and to achieving peace, watching the nature, doing sport and meeting friends. Although some undesirable factors such as shortage of trees shade and street furniture, congestion and unsuitable accessibility, influence the process of using recreational places and restrict the number of users. According to results, increasing natural attractions, recreational furniture, good accessibility and distribution of furniture in different parts of the site, will increase the desirability of using Oun-Ebn-Ali recreational place.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Madhumita Roy, Santanu Ray, Phani Bhusan Ghosh Decomposition and subsequent remineralization of mangrove detritus is important in nutrient dynamics within the forest as well as in offshore system. In order to study the impact of detritivorous fish on the mangrove estuarine detritus food web, a five compartment model of detritus food web dynamics has been developed for mangrove estuarine creeks of Hooghly- Matla Estuarine complex, Sundarban. The model simulates concentration of nutrient, biomass of phytoplankton, zooplankton, detritus and detritivorous fishes. Almost 70% of the detritus formed in the soil was being washed in the estuarine water to act as source or sink of nutrient for the primary producers of aquatic food chain. A significant amount of detritus in the estuarine water is readily consumed by a group of detritivorous fishes before it is being rematerialized completely in to inorganic nutrient form. The model has been calibrated and validated using field data accordingly. Increased detrital nitrogen values in the late monsoon and post monsoon months, assists the growth and high yield of detritivorous fishes as found in simulated and field observations. Comparison of simulated and observed results demonstrates the dependence of phytoplankton growth is a function of nutrient concentration and zooplankton grazing. Model results also show the dependence of detritivorous fishes on detritus which is a function of detritus biomass. In turn, detritus biomass is dependent upon several factors like mortality of phytoplankton, zooplankton, and detritivorous fishes; and chiefly on litter biomass and litter decomposition.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 S.I. Bartsev Uniqueness which is inherent to an ecological system leads to situation when necessary requirement of science research - the reproducibility of an experiment - can not be fully satisfied when ecological systems are studied. A possible solution to the problem of experiment reproducibility and transfering obtained results to other ecosystems is developing some formal procedures for establishing a relationship of similarity (scaling) between models of ecosystems. Based on the concept of functional symmetry and Lie groups of continuous transformations a procedure for constructing ecosystem models, which are similar with respect to selected indicator is suggested. Applicability of this procedure to detecting similarities and to reducing complexity of ecosystem models is illustrated.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Joyita Mukherjee, Santanu Ray Carbon cycle has a fundamental role in changing climate of the earth. Recent models of the estuary-atmosphere system demonstrate the potentially great importance of estuarine environment to the regulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Carbon, the key element of life is available in organic and inorganic forms as different compounds in air, water and soil. Our study site, Hooghly - Matla estuarine system receives a large load of nutrients throughout the year. This is mainly due to high litterfall from the adjacent luxuriant mangroves and yield of huge suspended sediment carried along with the river Ganges which is flowing through the western part of the Sundarban mangrove ecosystem.Keeping in view the crucial role of carbon, a seven compartment model has been proposed to study the dynamics of carbon in this estuarine system. Different forms of carbon present in soil (as soil organic carbon (SOC), soil inorganic carbon (SIC)) and in water (as dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), dissolved carbon dioxide (DCO2), dissolved bicarbonate (DBC), dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and particulate organic carbon (POC)) are taken as state variables. Litter biomass, dissolved oxygen, primary productivity, community respiration, temperature of water, pH of water, pH of soil, air-water exchange of carbon dioxide and conversion rates among different forms of carbon are considered as graph time functions. The data used in the present model are collected for over two years from our field works and experiments. Other sensitive rate parameters which are not possible to collect from survey or experiment, calibrated following standard procedure. Sensitivity analysis is performed along with calibration. Model simulation results are validated with observed data. Results show seasonal variations of litterfall and which is the main source of SOC pool and ultimately transported to the estuary. Other than litterfall, death of organisms in soil and water enriches the SOC and POC respectively. pH of water is governing factor and depending on this factor, DIC is converted to DCO2 and DBC, which are taken up by phytoplankton during photosynthesis. Mineralization rate of SOC to SIC and uptake rate of DCO2 and DBC are the sensitive parameters.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 A.S. Komarov, Yu.S. Khoraskina, S.S. Bykhovets, M.G. Bezrukova Soil organic matter (SOM) dynamics is an important pool in biological turnover of carbon and other elements of plants nutrition in forest ecosystems. Problems at its modelling are: quantification of SOM fractions which are decomposing with specific rates; description of humification, obtaining dependencies of SOM rates of transformation in dependence on external factors. Different methods of fractionating of SOM are now in use based on different solubility of fractions/ This approach presents difficulties at model's initialization. We expanded a model of SOM dynamics ROMUL based on successive stages of mineralization and transformation of fresh litter, which correspond to SOM pools in horizons L, F and H of forest floor. A1 et al. are horizons in mineral soil. Rates of transformation of one SOM pool into another in these horizons can be obtained from experimental data. The dynamics of N, Ca and Mg is described using main equations of SOM transformations with inserting of additional constants or functions as independent multipliers for rates of transformation. Pools of elements available for plants nutrition, and some intermediate pools such as secondary soil minerals have been added to the model. New ROMUL has been successfully applied to ICP Forest plots in Russia.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Yang Zhang, Chen Yiyun, Ding Qing, Ping Jiang Urban heat island effect has obtained more and more attention because environmental problems caused by the urban heat island have affected people's normal life. In this paper, qualitative and quantitative analyses have been used to study the relationship between normalized difference vegetated index (NDVI) and surface radiation temperature. The relationship of NDVI and surface radiation temperature has been studied in spatial profile. On that basis, the paper has studied the spatial distribution of heat island in Wuhan city and explained the features of the Wuhan spatial distribution of heat island. Research results has showed that there is obvious negative correlation between NDVI and the surface radiation Heating island strength is higher in industrial and commercial areas than others; Water and green space perform a distinct role to divide and mitigate the heat island effect.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Narouchit Dampin, Wit Tarnchalanukit, Kasem Chunkao, Montri Maleewong The bioenergetics fish growth model of Nile Tilapia ( Oreochromis niloticus ) cultured in the cages in wastewater oxidation pond is presented. The oxidation pond is located in the very successful project area “The Leam Phak Bia Environmental Study Research and Development Project under Royal Initiatives Petchaburi Province” in Thailand. There are five oxidation ponds connected in series in the research area. The measurement of Nile tilapia growth is taken in the third pond in which the water quality is in the effluent standard. The water quality and fish weight are measured in each month for one year period. The fish growth model in the form of ordinary differential equation is introduced to understand the behavior of fish growth due to various environmental factors which are dissolved oxygen demand (DO), water temperature, concentration of plankton, ammonia and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). In this presented model, we have introduced a new form of food assimilation efficiency as a function of fish weight. It is found that the predicted fish weight obtained from the model is in good agreement with the measurements. Also, this presented model can be applied to predict the fish weight in a wastewater stabilization pond when environmental factors have been changed.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 C.Q. Yan, T.X. Yue, G. Zhao High Accuracy Surface Modelling (HASM) can model surface with high accuracy, while its speed is a major limitation for its application in large scale data. This paper presents HASM-GA, a Graphic Processor Unit (GPU) accelerated High Accuracy Surface Modelling, to construct surface with a significant boost performance. Modern GPU has a highly parallel architecture with hundreds ofprocessors and stream processors, which is a powerful tool for bothgraphics processing and general purpose computation. Weparallel the most computationally-intensive portion of the HASM through NVIDA'sCompute Unified Development Architecture(CUDA)andQuadro 2000 GPU. The results show that one order of magnitude speedupcan be achieved by fully using the parallel processing power of theGPU compared with the traditional CPU method.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 L. Wu, Q. Jiang, X.M. Yang Eco-city planning has been a prevailing concern throughout China and beyond over the past few decades. Least-cost planning is a life-cycle costing approach for alternative analysis and decision-making, determining the preferred option that provides the optimal mix of financial, social and environmental outcomes for stakeholders throughout the project lifespan. A more sustainable approach is to incorporate the low carbon context into this economic analysis. Case studies, Tianjin Eco-city and Ningbo-Cixi Wetland Centre, granted by GEF, are presented and reviewed on how to foster key coastal areas of China into eco-cities by means of carbon footprint and costing. It is demonstrated that consideration should include carbon impact, carbon costs and accounting processes in the planning and management of the relevant plots, with achievement of key performance indicators relating to greenhouse gasses. Tertiary wastewater treatment, the selection of low carbon emission technology, and the utilization of constructed wetland configurations, green buildings and facilities are particularly demonstrated and modelled, employing energy software and economics tools repectively.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 M.N. Islam, D. Kitazawa, H.D. Park The paper investigates the predominant algal (Microcystis aeruginosa, Microcystis viridis, Microcystis ichthyoblabe, and Mirocystis wasenbergii ) bloom, their transition behaviors and toxin produced as Microcystin-Leucine+Arginine (MC-LR) , Microcystin-Arginine+Arginine (MC-RR) and Microcystin-Tyosine+Arginine (MC-YR) by cyanobacteria within the ecosystem of Lake Kasumigaura, Japan by using hydrodynamic ecosystem coupled model. Integrating the famous Monod functions ’ concept the second mode of toxin production and Grover et al., 2011 river reservoirs toxin modeling theoretical notion assumes that the rate of toxin production by cyanobacteria depends on proportional to blue green algal composition and their abundance. Conceptualizing these two novel idea we have developed a three dimensional numerical model and to elucidate the structure of algal species and prediction of toxin production within the lake ecosystem. The simulation results compare the toxin (MC-LR, MC-RR and MC-YR ) production of some stations in the Lake Kasumigaura with the observational data in the month of July, August and September for 2005, 2006 and 2007.The simulation result shows that there are some dominant species (Microcystis aeruginosa and Mycrocystis viridis are highly toxic) with regard to toxin produce in July, August and September in 2005. But in 2006 and 2007 there is no toxin produced by cyanobacteria (dominant species by Microcystis ichthyoblabe is toxic/nontoxic) in the ecosystem of Lake Kasumigaura. Because of timing and duration of the cyanobacteria bloom, making scum or colony and dying depends on the selecting parameters i.e. light intensity, temperature, water depth, wind direction, buoyancy and N: P ratio etc. But in some cases, toxin production depends on the Microcystis species toxic and non-toxic characteristics. The numerical modeling was calibrated by tuning toxin decay coefficient and other parameters for achieving a good agreement between the observations and the predictions.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 T. Nakayama In China, hydro-climate is diverse between north and south. Here process-based eco-hydrology model was coupled with complex sub-systems to develop coupled human and natural systems and to analyze impact of anthropogenic activity on eco-hydrologic change in continental scales. The model presented impact of irrigation on eco-hydrological processes. Furthermore, spatial pattern of Time-Integrated Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (TINDVI) gradient in agricultural fields showed heterogeneous characteristics of crop yield, which implied the increase in irrigation water use is one of the reasons for the increase in crop production. These results suggest strongly the needs of trans-boundary and -authority solutions of water management for sustainable development under sound socio-economic conditions contributory to national and global securities.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Tao Li, Jun Hua Zhang, Guang Ming Tan, Huai Bao Ma, Shu Xia Li Based on former research on the turbidity current, and learning lessons from the study on turbidity current,11 flume experiments has been operated with combined factors on different sediment concentration and different width. From the surveyed data turbidity current head going through the changing width section have been analyzed. Taken use of mathematical statistics method, local resistance coefficient of turbidity current head has been acquired on the changing width section.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 T. Tsujimoto, Y. Toda, T. Tashiro, H. Takaoka, K. Anbutsu, M. Obana River basin is a unit of natural runoff process and it can be considered as an assembly of flux network of water and various materials including sediment and nutrients. Inside a river basin, various landscapes are distributed, and landscape is composed of physical background, bio-chemical actions and biological aspects in associated with the local ecosystem. When the fluxes pass through a landscape, they are changed in quantity and quality and bring about various ecosystem services. Due to population increase and economic efficiency with urbanization, artificial facilities and flux networks have been added to connect multiple basins. These artificial systems have consumed fossil fuels, emitted green house gas, and degraded ecosystem. Outflow fluxes from multiple rivers degrade our facing coastal area in particular bay area. Multiple river basins connected with artificial flux networks, including a facing bay area, is here called river basin complex, where eco-compatible management methodology is required. In the present study, we have developed an integrated numerical model for eco-compatible management of river basin complex around Ise bay in Japan, which includes following 2 sub-models: (1) Flux network model and (2) Ecosystem models of various landscapes. The model can describe the change of the material fluxes and ecosystem services under the various social scenarios on the Ise bay river basin complex.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 H. Higashi, H. Koshikawa, S. Murakami, K. Kohata, M. Mizuochi, T. Tsujimoto Integrated Coastal Area and River basin Management (ICARM) is important to maintain/improve the sustainability of the coastal ecosystem services. We describe the effects of the land-based pollution reduction on the water quality in Ise Bay, Japan, based on the numerical simulations. The numerical model for water and material flow-flux in the bay consists of the hydrodynamic and the pelagic-benthic ecosystem models. The hydrodynamic model could predict the 3D current, pressure, salinity, and temperature. The pelagic-benthic ecosystem model simulated the available evaluation for the C-N-P-O biogeochemical cycle. The numerical simulations were carried out in order to investigate the response of coastal hypoxia in Ise Bay to the pollutant loading reductions predicted by the river basin model under the various social scenarios. These simulated results indicated that hypoxia volume could be reduced to 67% of the present loading condition if the most effective control of the point and nonpoint sources was adopted

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 X.C. Zhang, C. Ma, S.F. Zhan, W.P. Chen The objective of this study is to evaluate and simulate the ecological risk level of a coastal city, Tianjin's urbanization through an emergy synthesis model. In this study, an ecological risk index system was developed corresponding to the factors of urban ecosystem risk including in Pressure-State-Response model (PSR). Thus, an emergy-based ecological risk evaluation model (EERM) was proposed to evaluate and simulate the risk levels for urban expansion, which offers an integrated evaluation tool in view of urban ecosystem pressure, state and response. Emergy analysis methods are explained, illustrated and used to diagram the urban ecosystem, to evaluate environmental and economic inputs and harvested yield, and to assess the sustainability of the Tianjin during 1995 to 2009. The results have shown that, from 1995 to 2009, the pressure rating of the urban ecology risk in this area had been rising continually. These results comply with relevant laws of correlativity between urbanization and ecological protection in this research area. It is hoped that the evaluation and simulation for ecological risk will provide scientific basis for appraisal of the security and sustainable development of urbanization.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 A.I. Abakumov, V.A. Silkin, L.A. Pautova The phytoplankton production is a basis for a life activity of all species in every aquatic ecological system. Remote sounding methods make it possible to estimate chlorophyll concentration on the ocean surface. The data from remote sounding methods and the data of a nutrient concentration enable us to calculate and model the phytoplankton abundance. These calculations provide a possibility for the description of the phytoplankton production processes. We present here some models for the dynamics of the phytoplankton biomass. The qualitative properties of the solutions of these models are investigated. Strategically activities of the cell are defined by its internal state and by the environmental conditions. The state of the cell depends on nutrients. Our mathematical models describe the abundance dynamics for phytoplankton's community and dynamics of the cellular nutrients content. The models are based on the systems of differential equations. These models may be open or closed relative to the matter. The open models describe the chemostat processes. We investigate the property of the solutions of these models. The closed models have a infinite set of the positive solutions. The open models have a finite set of the non-negative solutions. The algorithm for finding the stable equilibrium solutions in open models is constructed. The theorems about the stable equilibrium solutions are proved with help the methods of structural analysis. These models describe the phytoplankton dynamics in the Black Sea.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Q.Y. Jia, F.H. Sun Liao river delta within Liao river Plain is an important commodity grain base in China. It is frequently affected by meteorological disasters. A large flood occurs on average of 7∼8 years. However, the basin has not yet achieved for the prediction of flood disaster. In this article, the HBV model-based distributed hydrological model was used to model and predict the runoff of Liao river delta. It is used in more than 45 countries all over the world, but the first time applied for Liao river Basin. The input data was obtained from the 5 automatic weather stations (AWS) installed at various places and altitudes in Liaoning Province which located in Liao river delta. Model input parameters include daily Tmax, Tmin, Tmean for 40 years. The watershed hydrological stations were used to calibrate the model parameters.This was the first application of the HBV model to simulate the in Liao rive basin runoff, the next step should be the actual runoff data by improving data accuracy and the length of time to adjust the model parameters.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 S.D. Wang, L.L. Miao, G.X. Peng Using the characteristics of the environment and disaster monitoring and forecasting small satellite constellation (HJ), the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) forest fire detection contextual algorithm was improved to adapt the HJ-infrared sensor (HJ-IRS). The enhanced method consisted of potential fire pixel identification, absolute and relative fire pixel judgment, background characteristics analysis, and fire pixel confidence. The improved algorithm was programmed in IDL7.1 and tested using HJ forest fire data from Heilongjiang Province in 2009. Results show that improving the forest fire detection contextual algorithm to adapt HJ-IRS is feasible and highly accurate. HJ data are much more sensitive to smaller and cooler fires than MODIS or the advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) data, and the improved capabilities offers a good potential for application in forest fire detection.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 13 Y. Liu, Y.P. Cai, G.H. Huang, C. Dong System planning of energy resources management is an effective way for supporting socio-economic development and enhancing eco-environmental sustainability. In this study, an inexact coupled coal and power management model with ecological restoration and pollutants mitigation was developed to analyze the impacts of growing coal use and electricity production on eco-environmental quality by integrating a complete set of ecological and environmental constraints. The model can not only effectively handle the uncertainties and complexities of the coupled coal and power management systems, but can also facilitate a dynamic analysis of capacity expansion, facility installation, energy resource inventory, coal blending and environmental regulation changes within a multi-period and multi-option context. The developed model was applied to a long-term coupled coal and power management system planning problem to support the regional eco-environmental sustainability in north China. The interval solutions associated with different risk levels of the constraint violations were obtained, which could be used to formulate decision alternative options. The results generated could also aid decision makers in identifying desirable strategies under various social-economic, environmental and system-reliability constraints with the highest system reliability and the lowest system cost and ecological environment impact. In addition, the tradeoffs between system costs and constraint-violation risks could also be tackled.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Geoscience Frontiers, Available online 11 February 2012 Huatian Zhang, Jianghai Li, Shoujie Liu, Wenshan Li, M. Santosh, ... The Khondalite Belt within the Inner Mongolia Suture Zone (IMSZ) in the North China Craton is a classic example for Paleoproterozoic ultrahigh-temperature (UHT) metamorphism. Here we report new spinel-bearing metapelitic granulites from a new locality at Xumayao within the southern domain of the IMSZ. Petrological studies and thermodynamic modeling of the spinel + quartz bearing assemblage shows that these rocks experienced extreme metamorphism at UHT conditions. Spinel occurs in two textural settings: 1) high XZn(Zn/(Mg+Fe+Zn) = 0.071-0.232) spinel with perthitic K-feldspar, sillimanite and quartz in the rock matrix; and 2) low XZn(0.045-0.070) spinel as inclusions within garnet porphyroblasts in association with quartz and sillimanite.Our phase equilibria modeling indicates two main stages during the metamorphic evolution of these rocks: 1) near-isobaric cooling from 975°C to 875°C around 8 kbar, represented by the formation of garnet porphyroblasts from spinel and quartz; and 2) cooling and decompression from 850°C, 8 kbar to below 750°C, 6.5 kbar, represented by the break-down of garnet. The spinel + quartz assemblage is considered to have been stable at peak metamorphism, formed through the break-down of cordierite, indicating a near-isothermal compression process. Our study confirms the regional extent of UHT metamorphism within the IMSZ associated with the Paleoproterozoic subduction-collision process. Highlights ► Ultra-high temperature (UHT) granulites reported from a new locality in the North China Craton. ► Peak P-T condition of T〉950°C and P〉7.5kbar defined by the stability of spinel + quartz. ► Regional UHT metamorphism and anti-clockwise P-T path

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Geoscience Frontiers, Available online 6 February 2012 N.S. Magesh, N. Chandrasekar, John Prince Soundranayagam Integration of remote sensing data and the geographical information system (GIS) for the exploration of groundwater resources has become a breakthrough in the field of groundwater research, which assists in assessing, monitoring, and conserving groundwater resources. In the present paper, various groundwater potential zones for the assessment of groundwater availability in Theni district have been delineated using remote sensing and GIS techniques. Survey of India toposheets and IRS-1C satellite imageries are used to prepare various thematic layers viz. lithology, slope, land-use, lineament, drainage, soil, and rainfall were transformed to raster data using feature to raster converter tool in ArcGIS. The raster maps of these factors are allocated a fixed score and weight computed from multi influencing factor (MIF) technique. Moreover, each weighted thematic layer is statistically computed to get the groundwater potential zones. The groundwater potential zones thus obtained were divided into four categories, viz., very poor, poor, good, and very good zones. The result depicts the groundwater potential zones in the study area and found to be helpful in better planning and management of groundwater resources.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Geoscience Frontiers, Available online 13 January 2012 Xiang Gao, Pingkang Wang, Dairong Li, Qiang Peng, Chengshan Wang, ... The well SK-I in the Songliao Basin is the first scientific borehole targeting the continental Cretaceous strata in China. Oval concretions, thin laminae and beds of dolostone are found intercalated within mudstone and organic rich black shale in the Nenjiang Formation of Campanian age. Low ordered ferruginous dolomite is composed of euhedral-subhedral rhombs with cloudy nucleus and light rims formed during the diagenesis, which are typical features of replacement. The heavy carbon isotopes (δCPDB–1.16∼16.0) are results of both the fermentation of organic matter by microbes and degassing of carbon dioxide during the period of diagenesis, and the presence of light oxygen isotopes (δOPDB–18.53∼–5.1) is a characteristic feature of fresh water influence which means the carbonate may have been altered by ground water or rainwater in the late diagenesis. Marine water incursions into the normally lacustrine basin have been proved by both the salinity of Z value and the occurrence of foraminifera in the same strata where dolomite occurs. Pyrite framboids observed by SEM are usually enclosed in the dolomite crystals or in the mudstones, supporting the sulphate reducing bacteria (SRB). The formation of both dolomite and pyrite are associated with marine water incursions, which not only supply magnesium ion for dolomite, but also result in limited carbonate precipitation in the basin. The presence of pyrite framboids indicates the development of an anoxic environment associated with salinity stratification in the lake. The dolomite in the Nenjiang Formation is the results of marine water incursions, diagenetic replacement of calcareous carbonate and sulphate reducing bacteria (SRB). ▪ Highlights ► Dolomite shows rhombs, with replacement structure of cloudy nucleus and light rims. ► δ C PDB values suggest fermentation of organic matter by microbes. ► Salinity of Z value and occurrence of foraminifera proved marine water incursions. ► Pyrite framboids in the dolomite crystals suggest sulphate reducing bacteria (SRB).

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Geoscience Frontiers, Available online 10 February 2012 Dilip Saha, Vikash Tripathy A first report on tuff beds from the Owk Shale in the Proterozoic Kurnool sub-basin in southern India is presented. The rhyolitic to rhodacitic tuffs, overlying shelfal limestones formed at depths below storm wave base, have rheomorphic features indicative of viscoplastic flow, and geochemical signatures of rhyolitic to rhyodacitic unwelded to welded tuffs, similar to those described from other Proterozoic intracratonic basins like Vindhyan and Chhattisgarh basins in India. Fragmentary nature of altered glass with perlitic cracks and local admixture with intrabasinal sediments suggest phreatomagmatic reactions. The widespread and repeated occurrences of felsic tuffs in these basins, possibly derived from low degree melting of continental crust, suggest intermittent tectonothermal instability which likely influenced basinal topography and cyclic development of the carbonate platforms.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Geoscience Frontiers, Available online 30 December 2011 Linqi Xia, Xueyi Xu, Xiangmin Li, Zhongping Ma, Zuchun Xia The Carboniferous−Early Permian rift-related volcanic successions, covering large areas in the Chinese Tianshan and its adjacent areas, make up a newly recognized important Phanerozoic large igneous province in the world, which can be further divided into two sub-provinces: Tianshan and Tarim. The regional unconformity of Lower Carboniferous upon basement or pre-Carboniferous rocks, the ages (360–351 Ma) of the youngest ophiolite and the peak of subduction metamorphism of high pressure–low temperature metamorphic belt and the occurrence of Ni-Cu-bearing mafic-ultramafic intrusion with age of ∼352 Ma and A-type granite with age of ∼358 Ma reveal that the final closure of the Paleo-Asian Ocean might take place in the Early Mississippian. Our summation shows that at least four criteria, being normally used to identify ancient asthenosphere upwelling (or mantle plumes), are met for this large igneous provin (1) surface uplift prior to magmatism; (2) being associated with continental rifting and breakup events; (3) chemical characteristics of asthenosphere (or plume) derived basalts; (4) close links to large-scale mineralization and the uncontaminated basalts, being analogous to those of many “ore-bearing” large igneous provinces, display Sr-Nd isotopic variations between plume and EM1 geochemical signatures. These suggest that a Carboniferous asthenosphere upwelling and an Early-Permian plume played the central role in the generation of the Tianshan–Tarim (central Asia) large igneous province. Highlights ► The Tianshan-Tarim Carboniferous–Early Permian volcanics constitute a large igneous province. ► The final closure of the Paleo-Asian Ocean occurred in the Early Mississippian. ► The large igneous province (LIP) correlated to asthenosphere upwelling or mantle plume.

Description: Publication year: 2012 Source: Geoscience Frontiers, Available online 10 February 2012 Mohamed K. Salah Seismic anisotropy and its main features along the convergent boundary between Africa and Iberia are detected through the analysis of teleseismic shear-wave splitting. Waveform data generated by 95 teleseismic events recorded at 17 broadband stations deployed in the western Mediterranean region are used in the present study. Although the station coverage is not uniform in the Iberian Peninsula and northwest Africa, significant variations in the fast polarization directions and delay times are observed at stations located at different tectonic domains. Fast polarization directions are oriented predominantly NW-SE at most stations which are close to the plate boundary and in central Iberia; being consistent with the absolute plate motion in the region. In the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula, fast velocity directions are oriented nearly E-W; coincident with previous results. Few stations located slightly north of the plate boundary and to the southeast of Iberia show E-W to NE-SW fast velocity directions, which may be related to the Alpine Orogeny and the extension direction in Iberia. Delay times vary significantly between 0.2 and 1.9 s for individual measurements, reflecting a highly anisotropic structure beneath the recording stations. The relative motion between Africa and Iberia represents the main reason for the observed NW-SE orientations of the fast velocity directions. However, different causes of anisotropy have also to be considered to explain the wide range of the splitting pattern observed in the western Mediterranean region. Many geophysical observations such as the lowPnvelocity, lower lithosphericQvalues, higher heat flow and the presence of high conductive features support the mantle flow in the western Mediterranean, which may contribute and even modify the splitting pattern beneath the studied region.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Geoscience Frontiers, Available online 24 December 2011 Xun Sun, Chunyan Sun, Jiangyun Xiang, Jihui Jia, Panfeng Li, ... To study on the significance and basis of acidolysis index to China marine gas hydrate exploring, since 2006, 111 samples derived from Leg 164 and 204 of the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) were analyzed in the experiment center of China Petroleum Exploration Research Institute to obtain data on acidolysis hydrocarbon index and methane carbon isotopes by the gas chromatography of PE AutoSystem XL and isotope mass spectrometer (IRMS) of Finnigan MAT251. Through these, we study the reliability of the acidolysis method and characterize the gas hydrate potential. The results show that the acidolysis hydrocarbon index has a stable correspondence with the Gas Hydrate Stability Zone (GHSZ) in the ODP, and that there are clear abnormal signs in shallow samples that might reliably reflect the existence of authigenic carbonate caused by hydrocarbon migration from bottom hydrate. We therefore propose that the ability to characterize the acidolysis hydrocarbon is crucial to submarine gas hydrate exploration in China. Highlights ► Acidolysis index and methane carbon isotope data of ODP drilling samples. ► Acidolysis index abnormality has stable correspondence with GHSZ. ► Distribution of acidolysis methane isotope differs with organic geochemical genesis.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Geoscience Frontiers, Available online 23 December 2011 R. Damian Nance, Gabriel Gutiérrez-Alonso, J. Duncan Keppie, Ulf Linnemann, J. Brendan Murphy, ... The Rheic Ocean was one of the most important oceans of the Paleozoic Era. It lay between Laurentia and Gondwana from the Early Ordovician and closed to produce the vast Ouachita-Alleghanian-Variscan orogen during the assembly of Pangea. Rifting began in the Cambrian as a continuation of Neoproterozoic orogenic activity and the ocean opened in the Early Ordovician with the separation of several Neoproterozoic arc terranes from the continental margin of northern Gondwana along the line of a former suture. The rapid rate of ocean opening suggests it was driven by slab pull in the outboard Iapetus Ocean. The ocean reached its greatest width with the closure of Iapetus and the accretion of the peri-Gondwanan arc terranes to Laurentia in the Silurian. Ocean closure began in the Devonian and continued through the Mississippian as Gondwana sutured to Laurussia to form Pangea. The ocean consequently plays a dominant role in the Appalachian-Ouachita orogeny of North America, in the basement geology of southern Europe, and in the Paleozoic sedimentary, structural and tectonothermal record from Middle America to the Middle East. Its closure brought the Paleozoic Era to an end. Highlights ► The Rheic Ocean separated Gondwana and Laurussia as the principal interior ocean of the Paleozoic. ► Its evolution dominates the geology of southern Europe, eastern North America and northern Africa following the closure of the Iapetus Ocean in the Silurian. ► Closure of the Rheic Ocean in the late Paleozoic created the vast Ouachita-Appalachian-Variscan orogen and assembled the greater part of Pangea.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Geoscience Frontiers, Available online 16 December 2011 Andong Wang, Yican Liu The crustal growth of the North China Craton (NCC) during the Neoarchean time (2.5–2.8 Ga) is a hotly controversial topic, with some proposing that the main crustal growth occurred in the late Neoarchean (2.5–2.6 Ga), in agreement with the time of the magmatism, whereas others suggest that the main crustal accretion took place during early Neoarchean time (2.7–2.8 Ga), consistent with the time of crustal-formation of other cratons in the world. Zircon U–Pb ages and Hf isotope compositions can provide rigorous constraints on the time of crustal growth and the evolution and tectonic division of the NCC. In this contribution, we make a comprehensive review of zircon Hf isotope data in combination with zircon U–Pb geochronology and some geochemistry data from various divisions of the NCC with an aim to constrain the Neoarchean crustal growth of the NCC. The results suggest that both 2.7–2.8 Ga and 2.5–2.6 Ga crustal growth are distributed over the NCC and the former is much wider than previously suggested. The Eastern block is characterized by the main 2.7–2.8 Ga crustal growth with local new crustal-formation at 2.5–2.6 Ga, and the Yinshan block is characterized by ∼2.7 Ga crustal accretion as revealed by Hf-isotope data of detrital zircons from the Zhaertai Group. Detrital zircon data of the Khondalite Belt indicate that the main crustal growth period of the Western block is Paleoproterozoic involving some ∼2.6 Ga and minor early- to middle-Archean crustal components, and the crustal accretion in the Trans-North China Orogen (TNCO) has a wide age range from 2.5 Ga to 2.9 Ga with a notable regional discrepancy. Zircon Hf isotope compositions, coupled with zircon ages and other geochemical data suggest that the southern margin may not be an extension of the TNCO, and the evolution and tectonic division of the NCC is more complex than previously proposed, probably involving multi-stage crustal growth and subduction processes. However, there is no doubt that 2.7–2.8 Ga magmatism and crustal-formation are more widely distributed than previously considered, which is further supported by the data of zircons from Precambrian lower crustal rocks, overlying sedimentary cover, modern river sediments and late Neoarchean syenogranites.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Geoscience Frontiers, Available online 13 December 2011 N. Natarajan, G. Suresh Kumar A numerical model is developed for investigating the evolution of fracture permeability in a coupled fracture matrix system in the presence of fracture-skin with simultaneous colloidal and bacterial transport, by taking into account the effects of thermal stress and silica precipitation/dissolution, which is computed using linear reaction kinetics. The non-linear coupled equations are numerically modeled using the fully implicit finite difference method and a constant continuous source is adopted while modeling thermal, contaminant, colloidal and bacterial transport. Due to co-colloid bacterial transport under non-isothermal conditions, in a coupled fracture-skin-matrix system, the fracture apertures vary spatially, with a corresponding pressure variation for a constant discharge. A series of numerical experiments were conducted for analyzing the spatial variation of fracture aperture in response to the combined effects of thermal stress, silica precipitation/dissolution, and simultaneous colloidal and bacterial transport in the presence of the fracture-skin. The simulation results suggest that temperature and contaminant concentration of the mobile fluid within the fracture increases with reduction in initial fracture aperture. The pattern of variation followed by the fracture aperture is nearly the same in the presence and absence of bacterial transport but the magnitude of the fracture aperture is low under the influence of bacterial transport. The variation in the fracture aperture resulting from precipitation/dissolution and thermoelastic stress is significant when the fracture aperture is very low and reduces with increment in fracture aperture. The variation in fracture aperture and pressure remains the same for both undersaturated and supersaturated fluid entering the fracture due to the influence of bacterial transport at the inlet of the fracture. Highlights ► Temperature and contaminant concentration increase with decreasing fracture aperture. ► Bacterial growth reduces the reservoir efficiency due to reduction of permeability. ► Contaminants form substrate for bacteria which causes fracture aperture reduction.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Geoscience Frontiers, Available online 17 December 2011 Brian P. Hedlund, Jessica K. Colea, Amanda J. Williams, Weiguo Hou, Enmin Zhou, ... The Rehai Geothermal Field, located in Tengchong County, in central-western Yunnan Province, is the largest and most intensively studied geothermal field in China. A wide physicochemical diversity of springs (ambient to ∼97°C; pH ≤1.8 to ≥9.3) provides a multitude of niches for extremophilic microorganisms. A variety of studies have focused on the cultivation, identification, basic physiology, taxonomy, and biotechnological potential of thermophilic microorganisms from Rehai. Thermophilic bacteria isolated from Rehai belong to the phylaFirmicutesandDeinococcus-Thermus.Firmicutesinclude neutrophilic or alkaliphilicAnoxybacillus,Bacillus,Caldalkalibacillus,Caldanaerobacter,Laceyella,andGeobacillus, as well as thermoacidophilicAlicyclobacillusandSulfobacillus.Isolates from theDeinococcus-Thermusphylum include severalMeiothermusandThermusspecies. Many of these bacteria synthesize thermostable polymer-degrading enzymes that may be useful for biotechnology. The thermoacidophilic archaeaAcidianus,Metallosphaera, andSulfolobushave also been isolated and studied. A few studies have reported the isolation of thermophilic viruses belonging toSiphoviridae(TTSP4 and TTSP10) andFuselloviridae(STSV1) infectingThermusspp. andSulfolobusspp., respectively. More recently, cultivation-independent studies using 16S rRNA gene sequences, shotgun metagenomics, or “functional gene” sequences have revealed a much broader diversity of microorganisms than represented in culture. Studies of the gene and mRNA encoding the large subunit of the ammonia monooxygenase (amoA) of ammonia-oxidizing Archaea (AOA) and the tetraether lipid crenarchaeol, a potential biomarker for AOA, suggest a wide diversity, but possibly low abundance, of thermophilic AOA in Rehai. Finally, we introduce the Tengchong Partnerships in International Research and Education (PIRE) project, an international collaboration between Chinese and U.S. scientists with the goal of promoting international and interdisciplinary cooperation to gain a more holistic and global view of life in terrestrial geothermal springs.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Geoscience Frontiers, Available online 12 December 2011 F.J. Luque, E. Crespo-Feo, J.F. Barrenechea, L. Ortega Stable carbon isotope geochemistry provides important information for the recognition of fundamental isotope exchange processes related to the movement of carbon in the lithosphere and permits the elaboration of models for the global carbon cycle. Carbon isotope ratios in fluid-deposited graphite are powerful tools for unravelling the ultimate origin of carbon (organic matter, mantle, or carbonates) and help to constrain the fluid history and the mechanisms involved in graphite deposition. Graphite precipitation in fluid-deposited occurrences results from CO2- and/or CH4-bearing aqueous fluids. Fluid flow can be considered as both a closed (without replenishment of the fluid) or an open system (with renewal of the fluid by successive fluid batches). In closed systems, carbon isotope systematics in graphite is mainly governed by Rayleigh precipitation and/or by changes in temperature affecting the fractionation factor between fluid and graphite. Such processes result in zoned graphite crystals or in successive graphite generations showing, in both cases, isotopic variation towards progressiveC orC enrichment (depending upon the dominant carbon phase in the fluid, CO2or CH4, respectively). In open systems, in which carbon is episodically introduced along the fracture systems, the carbon systematics is more complex and individual graphite crystals may display oscillatory zoning because of Rayleigh precipitation or heterogeneous variations ofδC values when mixing of fluids or changes in the composition of the fluids are the mechanisms responsible for graphite precipitation.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Geoscience Frontiers, Available online 10 December 2011 Yadong Wang, Jianjing Zheng, Weilin Zhang, Shiyuan Li, Xingwang Liu, ... Geologists agree that the collision of the Indian and Asian plates caused uplift of the Tibet Plateau. However, controversy still exists regarding the modes and mechanisms of the Tibetan Plateau uplift. Geology has recorded this uplift well in the Qaidam Basin. This paper analyzes the tectonic and sedimentary evolution of the western Qaidam Basin using sub-surface seismic and drill data. The Cenozoic intensity and history of deformation in the Qaidam Basin have been reconstructed based on the tectonic developments, faults growth index, sedimentary facies variations, and the migration of the depositional depressions. The changes in the sedimentary facies show that lakes in the western Qaidam Basin had gone from inflow to still water deposition to withdrawal. Tectonic movements controlled deposition in various depressions, and the depressions gradually shifted southeastward. In addition, the morphology of the surface structures in the western Qaidam Basin shows that the Cenozoic tectonic movements controlled the evolution of the Basin and divided it into (a) the southern fault terrace zone, (b) a central Yingxiongling orogenic belt, and (c) the northern fold-thrust belt; divided by the XI fault (Youshi fault) and Youbei fault, respectively. The field data indicate that the western Qaidam Basin formed in a Cenozoic compressive tectonic environment caused by the India–Asia plate collision. Further, the Basin experienced two phases of intensive tectonic deformation. The first phase occurred during the Middle Eocene–Early Miocene (Xia Ganchaigou Fm. and Shang Ganchaigou Fm., 43.8–22 Ma), and peaked in the Early Oligocene (Upper Xia Ganchaigou Fm., 31.5 Ma). The second phase occurred between the Middle Miocene and the Present (Shang Youshashan Fm. and Qigequan Fm., 14.9–0 Ma), and was stronger than the first phase. The tectonic–sedimentary evolution and the orientation of surface structures in the western Qaidam Basin resulted from the Tibetan Plateau uplift, and recorded the periodic northward growth of the Plateau. Recognizing this early tectonic–sedimentary evolution supports the previous conclusion that northern Tibet responded to the collision between India and Asia shortly after its initiation. However, the current results reveal that northern Tibet also experienced another phase of uplift during the late Neogene. The effects of these two stages of tectonic activity combined to produce the current Tibetan Plateau.

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Geoscience Frontiers, Available online 3 December 2011 C. Casquet, C.W. Rapela, R.J. Pankhurst, E.G. Baldo, C. Galindo, ... The role played by Paleoproterozoic cratons in southern South America from the Mesoproterozoic to the Early Cambrian is reconsidered here. This period involved protracted continental amalgamation that led to formation of the supercontinent Rodinia, followed by Neoproterozoic continental break-up, with the consequent opening of Clymene and Iapetus oceans, and finally continental re-assembly as Gondwana through complex oblique collisions in the Late Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian. The evidence for this is based mainly on a combination of precise U-Pb SHRMP dating and radiogenic isotope data for igneous and metamorphic rocks from a large area extending from the Rio de la Plata craton in the east to the Argentine Precordillera in the west and as far north as Arequipa in Peru. Our interpretation of the paleogeographical and geodynamic evolution invokes a hypothetical Paleoproterozoic block (MARA) embracing basement ultimately older than 1.7 Ga in the Western Sierras Pampeanas (Argentina), the Arequipa block (Peru), the Rio Apa block (Brazil), and probably also the Paraguaia block (Bolivia).

Description: Publication year: 2011 Source: Geoscience Frontiers, Available online 11 December 2011 Syed Amer Mahmood, Richard Gloaguen Landscapes in tectonically active Hindu Kush (NW Pakistan and NE Afghanistan) result from a complex integration of the effects of vertical and horizontal crustal block motions as well as erosion and deposition processes. Active tectonics in this region has greatly influenced the drainage system and geomorphic expressions. The study area is a junction of three important mountain ranges (Hindu Kush-Karakorum-Himalayas) and is thus an ideal natural laboratory to investigate the relative tectonic activity resulting from the India-Eurasia collision. We evaluate active tectonics using DEM derived drainage network and geomorphic indices hypsometric integral (HI), stream-length gradient (SL), fractal dimension (FD), basin asymmetry factor (AF), basin shape index (Bs), valley floor width to valley height ratio (Vf) and mountain front sinuosity (Smf). The results obtained from these indices were combined to yield an index of relative active tectonics (IRAT) using GIS. The average of the seven measured geomorphic indices was used to evaluate the distribution of relative tectonic activity in the study area. We defined four classes to define the degree of relative tectonic activity: class 1very high (1.0≤IRAT〈1.3); class 2high (1.3≥IRAT〈1.5); class 3—moderate (1.5≥IRAT〈1.8); and class 4—low (1.8≥IRAT). In view of the results, we conclude that this combined approach allows the identification of the highly deformed areas related to active tectonics. Landsat imagery and field observations also evidence the presence of active tectonics based on the deflected streams, deformed landforms, active mountain fronts and triangular facets. The indicative values of IRAT are consistent with the areas of known relative uplift rates, landforms and geology. Highlights ► Evaluation of DEM based geomorphic indices to study active tectonics in Hindu Kush. ► Index of relative active tectonics (IRAT) using GIS. ► Very high, high and moderate IRAT classes consistent with the known uplift rates.

Description: The transferability of the regional climate model REMO with a standard setup over different regions of the world has been evaluated. The study is based on the idea that the modeling parameters and parameterizations in a regional climate model should be robust to adequately simulate the major climatic characteristic of different regions around the globe. If a model is not able to do that, there might be a chance of an “overtuning” to the “home-region”, which means that the model physics are tuned in a way that it might cover some more fundamental errors, e.g., in the dynamics. All simulations carried out in this study contribute to the joint effort by the international regional downscaling community called COordinated Regional climate Downscaling EXperiment (CORDEX). REMO has been integrated over six CORDEX domains forced with the so-called perfect boundary conditions obtained from the global reanalysis dataset ERA-Interim for the period 1989 to 2008. These six domains include Africa, Europe, North America, South America, West Asia and the Mediterranean region. Each of the six simulations was conducted with the identical model setup which allows investigating the transferability of a single model to regions with substantially different climate characteristics. For the consistent evaluation over the different domains, a new evaluation framework is presented by combining the Köppen-Trewartha climate classification with temperature-precipitation relationship plots and a probability density function (PDF) skill score method. The evaluation of the spatial and temporal characteristics of simulated precipitation and temperature, in comparison to observational datasets, shows that REMO is able to simulate the mean annual climatic features over all the domains quite reasonably, but still some biases remain. The regions over the Amazon and near the coast of major upwelling regions have a significant warm bias. Wet and dry biases appear over the mountainous regions and East Africa, respectively. The temperature over South America and precipitation over the tundra and highland climate of West Asia are misrepresented. The probable causes leading to these biases are discussed and ideas for improvements are suggested. The annual cycle of precipitation and temperature of major catchments in each domain are also well represented by REMO. The model has performed well in simulating the inter- and intra-seasonal characteristics of different climate types in different regions. Moreover, the model has a high ability in representing the general characteristics of different climate types as measured by the probability density function (PDF) skill score method. Although REMO seems to perform best over its home domain in Europe (domain of development and testing), the model has simulated quite well the climate characteristics of other regions with the same set of parameterization options. Therefore, these results lead us to the conclusion that REMO is well suited for long-term climate change simulations to examine projected future changes in all these regions.

Description: Available online 28 December 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Geoscience Frontiers The Earth was born from a giant impact at 4.56 Ga. It is generally thought that the Earth subsequently cooled, and hence shrunk, over geologic time. However, if the Earth’s convection was double-layered, there must have been a peak of expansion during uni-directional cooling. We computed the expansion-contraction effect using first principles calculation. The result shows a radius about 120 km larger than that of the present Earth immediately after the consolidation of the magma-ocean on the surface, and subsequent shrinkage of about 110 km in radius within about 10 m.y., followed by gradual expansion of 11 km in radius due to radiogenic heating in the lower mantle in spite of cooling in the upper mantle in the Archean. This was due to double-layered convection in the Archean with final collapse of overturn with contraction of about 8 km in radius, presumably by the end of the Archean. Since then, the Earth has gradually cooled down to reduce its radius by around 12 km. Geologic evidence supports the late Archean mantle overturn ca. 2.6 Ga, such as the global distribution of super-liquidus flood basalts on nearly all cratonic fragments (〉35 examples). If our inference is correct, the surface environment of the Earth must have undergone extensive volcanism and emergence of local landmasses, because of the thin ocean cover (3–5 km thickness). Global unconformity appeared in cratonic fragments with stromatolite back to 2.9 Ga with a peak at 2.6 Ga. The global magmatism brought extensive crustal melting to yield explosive felsic volcanism to transport volcanic ash into the stratosphere during the catastrophic mantle overturn. This event seems to be recorded by sulfur mass-independent fractionation (SMIF) at 2.6 Ga. During the mantle overturn, a number of mantle plumes penetrated into the upper mantle and caused local upward doming of by ca. 2–3 km which raised local landmasses above sea-level. The consequent increase of atmospheric oxygen enabled life evolution from prokyaryotes to eukyaryotes by 2.1 Ga, or even earlier in the Earth history. Graphical abstract Highlights ► Expanding-contracting effects of the Earth calculated using the first principles calculation. ► Density analysis in the upper and lower mantle indicates mantle overturn at 2.8 Ga. ► The catastrophic mantle overturn supports many geological evidences.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 Sulfonamides (SAs) is one kind of the most important pharmaceuticals occurring in the environment. As the food additive, an increase application of SAs in the production of livestock and poultry leads to amounts of SAs excreted in manure, resulting in persistent environment pollution. Our research aimed to study the effects of some conditioners(sawdust, rice straw) on SAs degradation during the aerobic composting of animal manure. The experiments were conducted for 10 manure composting treatments as follow: hog manure,10 mg·kg -1 SAs; hog manure+sawdust,10 mg·kg -1 SAs; hog manure+rice straw,10 mg·kg -1 SAs; hog manure,20 mg·kg -1 SAs; hog manure+sawdust,20 mg·kg -1 SAs; hog manure+rice straw,20 mg/kg SAs; Chicken manure,10 mg·kg -1 SAs; Chicken manure+sawdust,10mg·kg -1 SAs; Chicken manure,20mg·kg -1 SAs; Chicken manure+sawdust, 20 mg·kg -1 SAs.The degradation of four SAs,sulfamerazine(SM1),sulfachlorpyridazine(SCP), sulfadimoxine(SDM′), Sulfaquinoxaline(SQ) were evaluated. The results showed that over 60% of 4 kinds of SAs were degraded in 35d of aerobic composting. Significant degradation of SM1, SCP, SDM′, SQ were showed in treatments using conditioners than using manure alone. The reduction of 4 kinds of SAs ranged from 62.30 to 100% in all six treatments in aerobic composting, and the highest degraded rates were observed in six hog manure treatments with adding rice straws. It concluded that adding conditioners improved the degradation rate of 4 kinds of SAs during composting, which was considered as a practical and economical option for reducing antibiotic levels in animal manure before field use.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 Since its implementation in 2000, China's urban domestic waste separation pilot program has achieved little success. The root cause lies in the lack of moisture control for crude waste from the source. If wet-basis waste is placed in bags, collected by waste bins/cans and transferred by vehicles, waste is difficult to be separated for collection, transport and disposal, and a large amount of materials lose the value of recycling. High moisture and rapid reproduction of microbes leads to serious pollution, collection and transfer of daily waste upon generation and soaring transport cost. Unsorted waste also greatly increases the difficulty in collection, transport and disposal. The study on dry-basis separation test helps achieve the separation and temporary storage of domestic waste through moisture control, facilitating the low-frequency placement, collection and transport of domestic waste. Based on the test, a new concept of low-frequency direct transport and separation of domestic waste on a dry basis is raised, and corresponding key technical equipment to be developed is specified.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 With the rapid development of community economic and the constant improvement of the level of living in our country, the number of the private car owned by local residents is increasing rapidly, and scrap cars also bring serious problem in treatment and disposal of Solid Waste. In this paper GREET (The Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy Use in Transportation Model) was used to calculate energy use and GHG emissions in different ways of car recycling. Based on the result, the paper proposes some advice to optimize the management of recycling of scrap car.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 The total wet-basis weight of urban and rural domestic waste in China is about 500,000,000 tons every year, 60% of which comes from dry-basis waste (about 300,000,000 tons). Single-composition, clean waste that is separated on a dry basis, especially the low-value components such as food waste and plastics, has huge resource recycling potentials. The potential added values from resource recycling of the 500,000,000 tons of urban and rural domestic waste would be around RMB 926.17 billion, RMB 1,065.98 billion and RMB 1,205.81 billion upon three prices of granulated organic-inorganic compound fertilizers. A potential value of RMB 1,065.98 billion, for instance, would be 2.26% of China's 2011 GDP (RMB 47.1564 trillion), which may make resource recycling of domestic waste one of the large industries. Resource recycling of domestic waste is a major energy-saving and environment-friendly strategic emerging industry in China, and a prioritized management strategy for resource recycling of domestic waste should be established for the maximum resource recycling.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 In the present research, five core sediments from Baihua Lake, a man-made reservoir located in the karst area on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau in China, were analyzed to study the distribution, origin and contamination of three selected heavy metals (Cu, Zn and Mn). The results showed that the concentrations of these heavy metals in sediments varied from different sampling locations and layers. The average concentrations of these heavy metals at the same sampling location followed the order of Mn〉Zn〉Cu. The mean concentrations of Zn and Mn in the samples at the depth of 0-5 cm and the depth of 5-10 cm of the core sediments were higher than those in the other layers. All of Cu, Zn and Mn presented similar distribution characteristics at sampling site CFZ, and different distribution characteristics from the other four sampling locations. A statistical analysis indicated that there were some correlations between the concentrations of these three heavy metals and other studied six elements occurring in the core sediment samples. Three components were obtained with principal component analysis (PCA) analysis of heavy metals concentrations in core sediment samples.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 Value-added hybrid materials can be produced by using KW as raw material. It was found that the morphologies of the hybrid carbon materials derived from KW presented similar structure with those made by pure saccharides, and mainly depended on the valence state of the iron. Both the cations (Fe(III), Fe(II)) and the anions (Cl-, SO42-, NO3-) of the iron salts significantly affected the reaction pathway of organic compounds and the retention of the nutrients in the KW. The products developed in this study are applicable for adsorption and catalysis in environmental and catalytic fields.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 There is a huge potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the way of disposing municipal solid waste (MSW), and the important role of MSW in global greenhouse gas emissions has attracted much attention. Based on the composition of Tianjin MSW and its content, collaborative emission reduction of three main MSW disposal ways were analysis, including landfill without landfill gas (LFG) utilization (S1), landfill with LFG utilization (S2), and incineration (S3). Taking Tianjin Binhai municipal solid waste incineration power generation CDM project and Tianjin Shuangkou landfill gas recovery and electricity generation CDM project as examples, the calculation methods provided by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Guidelines were used to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions and emission reductions, and then compared the collaborative emission reductions of the three scenarios. Results show that collaborative emission reductions of S1∼S3 respectively are 0.602 tCO2e/t MSW, 0.657 tCO2e/t MSW, and 0.871 tCO2e/t MSW, so the results of the comparison is S3〉S2〉S1.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 In this paper, according to the characteristics of rural solid waste logistics system and process, the ecological footprint evaluation method and model for rural solid waste disposal has been established, and taken Yuhong district of Shenyang as an example, the results showed that the ecological footprint of rural solid waste disposal was 226.95hm2, in which, the ecological footprint of livestock manure was 185.31hm2, which accounted for 81.65% of the total results, indicating special management measures should be taken on livestock manure to release the negative environmental effect.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 As spent air holding high oxygen (O2) concentration (10%-20%) and heat energy from sealed composting reactor at high temperature period, it is feasible for waste degradation by aerobic microorganisms, and promotes composting pile's temperature rising in composting process based on reusing spent air. In this study, a new method of spent air reusing (SAR) was applied in composting to investigate the improvement of the compost maturity and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with different composting pile height. The four different trials were researched in this paper. The conventional composting trial (T0) with 2.5 m pile height composting was used as the control, and T1, T2, T3 with 2.5 m, 3.0 m, 3.5 m pile height composting were operated under SAR method. The results showed that the compost under SAR trials had better quality and less GHG emissions than T0. Meanwhile, the composting treatment capacity increased by 40% and total GHG emissions reduced by 25.70% CO2-equivalent per ton composting materials. This study suggested SAR as a new method not only could increase the capacity of MSW composting, but also reduce the GHG emissions.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 The mesocosm technique was applied in studying of biological effects of suspend solid caused by dumping on mollusks. The results showed the high content of suspend solid will do harm to the construction mollusks. The mollusks show great capacity of accumulating of metal, and Pb is the preferred target. Argopecten irradirradians accumulated mainly Zn, Cu and Cd, Crassostrea virginica Cd, Cu and Zn, and Ruditapes philippinarum Zn, Cu and Cd, respectively. Marine dumping was positively correlated to the content of heavy metal in mollusks.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 For two-phase anaerobic digestion process of food waste, degree of hydrolysis and products by acidification during hydrolysis and acidification phase directly affect the performance of methanogenesis phase. Temperature has great impact on hydrolysis and acidification of food waste. This paper monitored the dynamic change of biogas production, biogas composition, pH, soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD) and volatile fatty acids (VFAs) during hydrolysis and acidification stage so as to investigate specific influence of temperature on food waste. With the same inoculum and 9 days’ fermentation, three different temperatures (35, 55 and 70 °C) were taken into consideration. The results showed that cumulative gas production was 4860 mL at 70 °C, which was 129.79% and 37.87% higher than that at 35 and 55 °C. Besides, hydrogen content at 70 °C was 45.34%, which was the highest among the three temperatures. Hydrolysis rate was proportional to the increase of temperature. Meanwhile, total VFAs yield and composition widely differed at three different temperatures. The hydrolysis and acidification products at 35 °C were mainly ethanol and acetic acids and the highest concentrations of ethanol at 35 °C were 3.28 and 3.65 times of that at 55 and 70 °C, but more acetic, isobutyric and butyric acids were generated at 55 and 70 °C. Among three temperatures, 70 °C had the highest acetic acids concentration while 55 °C had the highest isobutyric and butyric acids concentration.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 In this paper, the commonly used method and current used index system for comprehensive evaluation of water quality of ocean dumping areas are analyzed. We found that the normal methods such as single factor method and comprehensive index method are more and more unqualified to deal with the nonlinear, non-normal distribution, and high dimensional of the data, while the indexes should be added because new toxic pollutants brought to dumping areas as the rapid grows of ocean dumping activities is also rapidly increasing. Finally, a system of evaluation indexes and methods for comprehensive evaluation of water quality of ocean dumping areas is constructed.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 To study the effect of biogas production with a single component in the waste, the phenomena of biogas production with the groups of fat powder, cellulose powder and protein powder inoculated respectively in activated sludge from Liu Minying biomass pool and Xiao Hongmen Sewage Plant were observed simultaneously. Six reactors in total were settled. Gas production and the component of the biogas were monitored by GC everyday. Three single materials and the sludge were inspected with infrared spectrometer from the beginning of the installment of the reactors. The results of the experiments show that cellulose powder has the best ability on the respect of methane production, and fat powder is worse than cellulose powder but better than protein powder. On the respect of hydrogen production, protein powder is the best and the other two materials produce gas without hydrogen at all. Compared with sludge from the two different origins, sludge from Liu Minying biomass pool is better both on methane and hydrogen production. The difference of sludge FTIR figures between Liu Minying biomass pool and Xiao Hongmen Sewage Plant can explain this to some degree.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 The purpose of this study is to explore the possibility of long-term sustainable anaerobic digestion of food waste in semi-continuous single-stage reactors by supplementing trace elements. Compared with the failure of anaerobic digestion of food waste after prolonged operation, a clearly enhancement of process performance was observed by supplementing a model trace element solution. Although the sustainable continuous anaerobic digestion of food waste could not be achieved by supplementing a model trace element solution, the correlation of process performance and trace element profile during continuous operating period revealed that the declining performance was highly likely due to the decreasing trace element concentrations, especially Co, Mo, Ni and Fe. This finding was expected to provide a promising strategy for sustainable anaerobic digestion of food waste.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 Cellulosic nanofibrillar structures had received much attention because of its wide range of distribution, renewable and environmentally benign nature and perfect mechanical properties. However, as an important component of plant fibres, lignin was always removed in paper making process. The waste water contained lignin had caused a serious environmental problem. So it was important to study the application of lignin. In this study, different lignin- containing Kraft wood pulps were obtained after different chemical treatments. The raw materials were pre-treated through the process of acid hydrolysis and then the pulps were homogenized by a high-pressure homogenizer. After the above processes, nanofibers of different lignin-containing cellulose samples dispersed in deionised water were obtained. The samples were characterized by XRD, TEM and thermal analysis. The results obviously showed the nanosize and crystallinity of different lignin-containing cellulose through the TEM and XRD analysis. The hydrophilicity of lignin-containing nanofibrillar cellulose samples were evaluated by contact angle measurements. The experimental results indicated that the lignin-containing nanofibrillar cellulose has hydrophobic property to some extent.Click here and insert your abstract text.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 In this study, hydrothermal carbonization was used to upgrade waste biomass at temperatures ranging from 150 to 375 oC and a residence time of 30 minutes. The kinetics of hydrothermal carbonization was investigated and fuel properties of produced hydrochars were evaluated. The kinetic study indicated that hydrothermal carbonization of biomass followed first-order reaction rate with the apparent activation energy of 67.41 and 179.54 kJ/mol for coconut fiber and 59.18 and 173.70 kJ/mol for eucalyptus leaves within the temperature ranges of 150-300 oC and 300-375 oC, respectively. Hydrothermal carbonization narrowed the differences in fuel properties among different biomass feedstocks. The fuel qualities of hydrochars were significantly improved: increased ignition temperatures and elevated combustion temperature regions compared to raw biomass feedstock. The present study showed that hydrothermal carbonization was a promising conversion process for the production of the hydrochars which had increased fuel qualities compared to raw biomass.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 The technique of anaerobic fermentation for butanol production have arosen increasing attention, since the butanol as regeneration bioenergy is important to solve the world's energy shortage problem. This study uses a bibliometric approach to quantitatively assess current research trends on anaerobic digestion for butanol, by using the data from the Science Citation Index-Expended database and the Derwent Innovations index of the Web of Science. A metric analysis was made on related literature and patents in these two databases, which was indexed considerly from 2001 to 2011. Results indicated that in recent years there had been a notable growth trend in publication outputs. During this period, USA had the largest number of publications. However, of all the institutes, CHINESE ACAD SCI held primacy over the most publications. The mainstream of anaerobic digestion for butyl alcohol research was in the environmental chemistry, engineering, biochemistry molecular biology related fields. Three journals including Journal of chemical and engineering data, Bioresource Technology, Journal of chromatography, Journal of chemical thermodynamics were the most popular ones in this field. In addition, keyword analysis shows that the process, reactor, pretreatment and co-digestion were the hotpots of the latest 18 years.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 Membrane technique is more and more used in the papermaking effluent treatment because of the advantages of environmental, high efficient and low energy consumption. In this work, a new cellulose nanocrystalline (CNC)/polysulfone (PSF) composite membrane was prepared with L-S phase invasion and was used to separate papermaking effluent. The composite membranes were coagulated in methanol/water coagulation bath with different concentration. The properties of the membrane which was used to treat the papermaking effluent were characterized. The cross section of the membrane was characterized by a scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The tensile strength was measured. Flux and rejection rate were studied. Moreover, the properties of the effluent which separated with membrane were characterized. Results showed that the membrane structure differed as the methanol concentration changed. With the increase of the CNC content, the tensile strength increase first and then decrease. The new composite membrane has a relative high flux during the treatment of papermaking effluent. At the same time, the lignin content, suspended solids (SS) and chemical oxygen demand in the papermaking effluent all decreases obviously.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 Abandoned chemical weapons (ACW) by the Japanese Army in China belong to old chemical weapons, which were produced in World WarII, buried underground or underwater. There are significant differences between old chemical weapons and chemical weapons in stock. The aim of the paper is the investigation and study on the disposal and destruction of ACW. We present the methods how to recognize and identify ACW, how to distinguish what kind of chemical warfare agents inside it. Its destruction principle and basic program of ACW, the operation technological processes for destruction of yellow munitions, red munitions, irregular munitions, contaminated solid material and water, other wastewater are specially emphasized.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 With the wide application of polyurethane foam materials, a large number of polyurethane foam wastes need to be disposed. There are mainly three types of disposal technology, landfill, incineration and recycling in the world. In this paper, through comprehensive comparison, recycling is the most desirable way. Physical recycling method, due to the simple operation and relatively active application, in the short term is an effective means. Chemical recycling method, due to its higher technical difficulty, is difficult to realize large-scale industrialized production in the short term. And in the future, recovery utilization is the ultimate method.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 Explosive waste widely exists in people's lives, and burnout is an effective technology for its disposal. A new destruction furnace is presented according to the characteristics of explosive waste burnout, which could control the destruction of it. The analysis for design requirement indicates the furnace body and insulating layer are the critical components. The thickness of furnace body which decides the endurance for blast shock wave can be calculated though the dynamic coefficient method. Based on the maximum allowable radiation loss model, the thickness of insulation material is optimized. The design meets technical requirements and makes burning work more secure.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 This work describes the utilization of self propagating reaction for the detoxification of the fly ash from medical waste incineration. The immobilization of heavy metals and phase transformation fly ash were evaluated. In this self propagating process, the mix ratio of fly ash to the starting mixture of more than 80% will support the self propagating process with a melting temperature of 1400°C. The toxicity characteristic leaching procedure shows that the fly ash leaching concentration of Pb, Cd exceeds the toxicity regulation level of Hazardous Waste Characteristics, and the Cu and Zn are with relatively high environmental risk too. But for the self propagating product, Cu, Pb, Cd can barely be detective in the leachate. The detoxification can be attributed to the evaporation and the immobilization process, according to the experimental analysis, the unvolatilized part is fixed in the vitrified melt inclusion, and the heavy metal speciation transform into FeMn oxides, organic matter bound and residual forms. The results indicates that melting of fly ash by self propagating reaction can be a reliably way to decrease the risk to both environment and human.

Description: 2012 Publication year: 2012 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 16 The destroying tasks of high-risk hazardous chemical waste have a strict request to the health status of destruction equipment.The paper proposes the health status classification method based on time between failures for the destruction of equipment, set up health status assessment model based on Time-varying Bayesian Networks and the time slice, which can take advantage of history fault information and health status monitoring indicator information to health status assessment for the destruction equipment, and which provides a reliable and safe evaluation method.