extended study of atmospheric heavy metal deposition in lithuania based on moss analysis

The use of different moss species – Hylocomium splendens,Pleurozium schreberi, Eurhynchium angustirete, Sphagnum and Rhytidiadelphus – was tested for the investigation of atmosphericheavy metal deposition. Maps representing heavy metal depositionpattern in Lithuania are presented for Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Ni, Pb and V.The most suitable species for heavy metal deposition studies was Hylocomium splendens in which the concentrations of metalswere found to be up to 25% higher than in other species. Interspeciesand interelemental comparison was also performed. Several well definedlocal pollution sources were identified.     

Classification of the Caspian Sea coastal waters based on trophic index and numerical analysis

In order to characterize the trophic state of the southern coastal waters of the Caspian Sea, trophic index (TRIX) as well as numerical analysis using cluster and discriminant analysis were employed in this study. Chemical and biological parameters (NO₃, NO₂, NH₄, PT, DO, and Chla) used in this study were collected seasonally from summer 1999 to spring 2000. A new trophic index developed by modification of TRIX indicated mesotrophic to eutrophic conditions for the Caspian Sea. Numerical analysis revealed three groups of the study area and it was found that the used methods are in good agreement. Both of them predicted poor to moderate conditions in the western part of the study area and the numerical classification predicted trophic conditions in the study area. However, TRIX was found to be a more accurate and suitable method. It performs more conservatively than the numerical classification and characterized lower classes of water quality for the stations in central and eastern parts of the study area.     

Water security assessment in Haihe River Basin using principal component analysis based on Kendall τ

Kendall τ has reasonable theoretic background than Pearson correlation. It can be applied more widely in all aspects. Instead of using widely adopted Pearson correlation or its extensions in a large number of principal component analysis (PCA) instances, we introduce the Kendall τ into the PCA method. PCA is a well-known statistical data analysis algorithm and is aimed to extract feature from high-dimensional data. It is designed to reduce the number of variables to a small number of indices while attempting to preserve the relationships present in the original data. This paper uses PCA based on Kendall τ in water security assessment of Haihe River Basin.     

Transformation effect of resource-based cities based on PSM-DID model: An empirical analysis from China

Promoting sustainable development in resource-based cities is required to accelerate transformative economic development, which also can promote harmonious development and accelerate progress of industrialization while playing a critical role in China's urbanization. However, the role of regional sustainable development plans within resource-based cities is unclear. This paper selected 87 resource-based cities as the treated group, matching propensity scores of city characteristics on a total of 253 cities in China from 2008 to 2018. The paper used the difference-in-differences method to evaluate the impact of the implementation of the “National Plan for Resource-based City Sustainable Development (2013-2020)”, measuring six years before and five years post-planning implementation. We found: (1) The implementation of the plan has promoted economic, social, and ecological transformation by 19.6%, 55.4% and 74.5% respectively (p < 0.01), but there appeared to be no additional effects on sustainable utilization of resources. (2) Among driving factors, market development affected all forms of transformation the most. (3) The impact of this transformation varied by stages of urban development according to the full life cycle of the resource-based city and its local resources. Specifically, the transformation effect of the growing type city in economic, social, ecological and resource transformation was the strongest among that of all type stages.     

基于Matlab小波分析的南京北郊大气O3浓度变化特征研究

以2008年南京北郊大气中O₃ 质量浓度观测资料和常规观测资料为基础，利用Matlab小波分析工具，对O₃浓度的年时间序列进行分析，得出该地区的O₃ 日均浓度的变化特征：春、夏季节O3浓度大于秋、冬季节，最高浓度出现在春末夏初，最低浓度出现在冬季；并且全年共有5个突变点；弱高压的天气系统、较高的温度、较低的湿度和晴朗少云的天气是造成南京北郊O₃浓度突变的主要气象因素。结合HYSPLIT气流后向轨迹模拟，对污染源来源进行追踪，结果表明：南京北郊O₃高浓度污染来源主要分为本地局地污染和外来污染物输送两类；垂直方向上，O₃的区域尺度或中尺度的输送主要稳定在混合层的底层。     

Evaluating the effectiveness of routine water quality monitoring in Miyun reservoir based on geostatistical analysis

This study used geographic information system techniques and geostatistics methods to evaluate the effectiveness of routine water quality monitoring in the western segment of the Miyun reservoir in Beijing. Methodologies as well as the sampling design are evaluated. The single-layer evaluation and three integrated evaluation methods including principal component analysis (PCA), ordinary kriging (OK)_Mean, and Mean_Layers were used to validate the effectiveness of evaluation methods, and the effectiveness of each sampling design was validated by comparing their errors. Results indicated that, while a single-layer evaluation only shows the trophic state of water at a specific level, an integrated evaluation synthetically analyzes and evaluates the trophic state of the entire water body. Furthermore, results of the integrated analysis show that a PCA method is more accurate and can represent the trophic state of the entire water body. The OK_Mean and Mean_Layers methods are only able to represent the mean level for trophic state of the entire water body but cannot reflect local trophic state and distribution details. Although methods used in the routine monitoring of Miyun reservoir have some similarities to the OK_Mean and Mean_Layers methods, their range of errors and uncertainty are greater because of a lack of detailed spatial continuous information. The analysis on the number of sampling points shows that, within a certain range of error, minor changes of sampling points will have no obvious impact on the monitoring results. For the routine monitoring of western Miyun reservoir, using only three to five sampling points for monitoring is inadequate. According to our analysis, it is more appropriate to use at least ten sampling points for monitoring these areas.     

Analysis and evaluation of the regional air quality index forecasting based on web-text sentiment analysis method

Quality analysis is the science of in-depth monitoring supported by interactive visual interfaces, and it has many applications in environmental fields. According to nature, both manual and natural issues do not adequately understand the danger factor monitoring approach since they cannot correctly take all the information as an accessible one. Therefore, this paper suggests a web-text analysis based regional air quality index forecasting (WEBT-RAQIF) method for the air quality index monitoring development and evaluation of pollution research. In the context of acquiring a system familiar to a large number of research experiments, a web-text analysis method has developed to support monitoring and analysis issues. In this process, the added benefit of web-text has been illustrated by contrasting traditional monitoring approaches with immersive web-text analysis techniques through various user domains. The empirical evidence of the added value for general monitoring has been analyzed by web-text analysis     

Identification of copper sources in urban surface waters using the principal component analysis based on aquatic parameters

The goal of this work was to identify the sources of copper loads in surface urban waters using principal component analysis under the aquatic parameters data evaluation approach. Water samples from the Irai and Iguacu rivers were collected monthly during a 12-month period at two points located upstream and downstream of a metropolitan region. pH, total alkalinity, dissolved chloride, total suspended solids, dissolved organic matter, total recoverable copper, temperature, and precipitation data provided some reliable information concerning the characteristics and water quality of both rivers. Principal component analysis indicated seasonal and spatial effects on copper concentration and loads in both environments. During the rainy season, non-point sources such as urban run-off are believed to be the major source of copper in both cases. In contrast, during the lower precipitation period, the discharge of raw sewage seems to be the primary source of copper to the Iguacu River, which also exhibited higher total metal concentrations.     

Shipboard techniques based on flow injection analysis for measuring dissolved Fe, Mn and Al in seawater

An overview is presented of sampling techniques and flow injection analysis (FIA) methods for low concentrations of Fe, Mn and Al in filtered seawater. On the basis of sampling procedures, filtration techniques, accuracy, blanks, detection limits, intercalibration results and oceanographic consistency, the feasibility of these FIA methods was evaluated. It was found that these metals could be measured on board with a minimum risk of contamination and with good accuracy even at low subnanomolar levels (<0.5 nM). Results for reference seawater were in the case of Fe-FIA and Mn-FIA in excellent agreement with the certified values. Data from samples analyzed by Fe-FIA and by cathodic stripping voltametry (CSV) compared well, as did Mn-FIA and GFAAS. All three methods gave results that were mostly in good agreement with data from the same ocean regions published by other research groups. Two different types of surface water sampling were also tested and compared, namely conventional hand filling of a sample bottle from a rubber dinghy away from the ship, and underway pumping of seawater using a 'tow fish'. The latter method gave the best results. Also, conventional membrane filtration and cartridge filtration for large volume filtration were compared using Fe and Al data from water column samples. Good agreement was found for both filter types, although for defining dissolved metal species the latter filter type was preferred.     

Input strategy analysis for an air quality data modelling procedure at a local scale based on neural network

In recent years, a significant part of the studies on air pollutants has been devoted to improve statistical techniques for forecasting the values of their concentrations in the atmosphere. Reliable predictions of pollutant trends are essential not only for setting up preventive measures able to avoid risks for human health but also for helping stakeholders to take decision about traffic limitations. In this paper, we present an operating procedure, including both pollutant concentration measurements (CO, SO₂, NO₂, O₃, PM10) and meteorological parameters (hourly data of atmospheric pressure, relative humidity, wind speed), which improves the simple use of neural network for the prediction of pollutant concentration trends by means of the integration of multivariate statistical analysis. In particular, we used principal component analysis in order to define an unconstrained mix of variables able to improve the performance of the model. The developed procedure is particularly suitable for characterizing the investigated phenomena at a local scale.     

Morphometry and land cover based multi-criteria analysis for assessing the soil erosion susceptibility of the western Himalayan watershed

Complex mountainous environments such as Himalayas are highly susceptibility to natural hazards particular those that are triggered by the action of water such as floods, soil erosion, mass movements and siltation of the hydro-electric power dams. Among all the natural hazards, soil erosion is the most implicit and the devastating hazard affecting the life and property of the millions of people living in these regions. Hence to review and devise strategies to reduce the adverse impacts of soil erosion is of utmost importance to the planners of watershed management programs in these regions. This paper demonstrates the use of satellite based remote sensing data coupled with the observational field data in a multi-criteria analytical (MCA) framework to estimate the soil erosion susceptibility of the sub-watersheds of the Rembiara basin falling in the western Himalaya, using geographical information system (GIS). In this paper, watershed morphometry and land cover are used as an inputs to the MCA framework to prioritize the sub-watersheds of this basin on the basis of their different susceptibilities to soil erosion. Methodology included the derivation of a set of drainage and land cover parameters that act as the indicators of erosion susceptibility. Further the output from the MCA resulted in the categorization of the sub-watersheds into low, medium, high and very high erosion susceptibility classes. A detailed prioritization map for the susceptible sub-watersheds based on the combined role of land cover and morphometry is finally presented. Besides, maps identifying the susceptible sub-watersheds based on morphometry and land cover only are also presented. The results of this study are part of the watershed management program in the study area and are directed to instigate appropriate measures to alleviate the soil erosion in the study area.     

China's water risk assessment and industrial source analysis based on the localization of WWF water risk assessment tools

The WWF water risk assessment tool is a universal methodology, as the establishment of its indicators fully consider various types of natural and social environments. When this tool is applied to China, a large country with a complex water situation in a period of rapid development, appropriate localization adjustment is necessary to ensure that indicators are generally stable and assessment results are internationally comparable. Based on the localization of WWF water risk assessment tools, this is the first application assessing water risk in China in terms of physical risks, regulatory risks and reputation risks. It explores the sources of China's water risk from industrial sectors and constructs a classification index system according to the degree of water dependence and the level of water pollution. Using the classification index system and relevant data, we find the key industrial sectors, enterprises and production processes to reduce water risk in China's ten major water valleys and offer some effective and practical management suggestions. Due to the large regional differences of water risk-bearing capacity in China, the assessment results should be interpreted in combination with specific national conditions of China and emphasis should be laid on key areas and industries.     

Cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis of BMPs in controlling agricultural nonpoint source pollution in China based on the SWAT model

Best management practices (BMPs) have been widely used in managing agricultural nonpoint source pollution (ANSP) at the watershed level. Most BMPs are related to land use, tillage management, and fertilizer levels. In total, seven BMP scenarios (Reforest1, Reforest2, No Tillage, Contour tillage, and fertilizer level 1–4) that are related to these three factors were estimated in this study. The objectives were to investigate the effectiveness and cost-benefit of these BMPs on ANSP reduction in a large tributary of the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) in China, which are based on the simulation results of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. The results indicated that reforestation was the most economically efficient of all BMPs, and its net benefits were up to CNY 4.36×10⁷ years^?1 (about USD 7.08×10⁶ years^?1). Regarding tillage practices, no tillage practice was more environmentally friendly than other tillage practices, and contour tillage was more economically efficient. Reducing the local fertilizer level to 0.8-fold less than that of 2010 can yield a satisfactory environmental and economic efficiency. Reforestation and fertilizer management were more effective in reducing total phosphorus (TP), whereas tillage management was more effective in reducing total nitrogen (TN). When CNY 10,000 (about USD 162) was applied to reforestation, no tillage, contour tillage, and an 0.8-fold reduction in the fertilizer level, then annual TN load can be reduced by 0.08, 0.16, 0.11, and 0.04 t and annual TP load can be reduced by 0.04, 0.02, 0.01 and 0.03 t, respectively. The cost-benefit (CB) ratios of the BMPs were as follows: reforestation (207 %) > contour tillage (129 %) > no tillage (114 %) > fertilizer management (96 and 89 %). The most economical and effective BMPs can be designated as follows: BMP1 (returning arable land with slopes greater than 25° to forests and those lands with slopes of 15–25° to orchards), BMP2 (implementing no tillage on arable land with slopes less than 15°), and BMP5 (0.8-fold less than that of 2010).     

Observations of urban airborne particle number concentrations during rush-hour conditions: analysis of the number based size distributions and modal parameters

A summertime study of the number concentration and the size distribution of combustion derived nanometre sized particles (termed nanoparticles) from diesel and spark-ignition (SI) engine emissions were made under rush-hour and free-flow traffic conditions at an urban roadside location in Leeds, UK in July 2003. The measured total particle number concentrations (N(TOTAL)) were of the order 1.8 x 10(4) to 3.4 x 10(4) cm(-3), and tended to follow the diurnal traffic flow patterns. The N(TOTAL) was dominated by particles < or =100 nm in diameter which accounted for between 89-93% of the measured particle number. By use of a log-normal fitting procedure, the modal parameters of the number based particle size distribution of urban airborne particulates were derived from the roadside measurements. Four component modes were identified. Two nucleation modes were found, with a smaller, more minor, mode composed principally of sub-11 nm particles, believed to be derived from particles formed from the nucleation of gaseous species in the atmosphere. A second mode, much larger in terms of number, was composed of particles within the size range of 10-20 nm. This second mode was believed to be principally derived from the condensation of the unburned fuel and lube oil (the solvent organic fraction or SOF) as it cooled on leaving the engine exhaust. Third and fourth modes were noted within the size ranges of 28-65 nm and 100-160 nm, respectively. The third mode was believed to be representative of internally mixed Aitken mode particles composed of a soot/ash core with an adsorbed layer of readily volatilisable material. The fourth mode was believed to be composed of chemically aged, secondary particles. The larger nucleation and Aitken modes accounted for between 80-90% of the measured N(TOTAL), and the particles in these modes were believed to be derived from SI and diesel engine emissions. The overall size distribution, particularly in modes II-IV, was observed to be strongly related to the number of primary particle emissions, with larger count median diameters observed under conditions where low numbers of primary soot based particles were present.     

A remote in situ monitor based on continuous flow analysis for the quantitation of sub-micromolar levels of hexavalent chromium in natural waters

We describe the design, optimization, and application of a small, lightweight, deployable monitoring instrument for accurately measuring parts-per-billion levels of hexavalent Cr in surface waters at hourly intervals. The monitor quantifies Cr(vi) using a standard molecular absorbance spectroscopic method, i.e. by formation of a complex with 1,5-diphenylcarbazide (DPC). The continuous flow analysis (CFA) design uses narrow conduits (0.90 mm) that are hot-forged onto poly(methyl methacrylate) ('Plexiglas') plates based on the method of Jannasch et al.(Anal. Chem., 1994, 66, 3352). The sample stream is drawn through the manifold at 25 microl min(-1) using a mini-peristaltic pump; osmotic pumps (10 microl h(-1)) are used to continuously inject reagent (2.0 mM DPC, 0.60 M HNO(3), 5.0% w/v acetone, and 0.10% w/v Brij-35) and to periodically introduce quality control standards and a cleaning solution (0.50 M HNO(3)). The 'Z-type' optical cell uses a liquid-core waveguide (10 mm) to collimate the light-emitting diode source beam (lambda(max) 574 nm) to a broadband photodiode detector. Figures of merit are: 7 min cycle time, response within 28 min and clear-down within 31 min, low waste generation (<40 ml d(-1)), detection limit (3sigma) of 48.4 microg l(-1) as Cr(vi) or 0.411 microM as chromic acid, 1.54% relative standard deviation at 100 microg l(-1), and selectivity for dissolved Cr(vi) in authentic surface water samples containing moderate levels (>0.21% w/v) of total particulate matter. Using a test chamber containing Milwaukee Harbor water that was periodically fortified with Cr(vi) standards, continuous testing over a 15 day period (354 h) yielded results that were in excellent agreement (<5% variation) with measurements made using an ICP-MS reference method. Drift in the calibration model over the test period was 1.23% and the variation in a 0.50 mg l(-1) Cr(vi) standard was 3.8%(n= 11). Known interferences to the DPC chemistry (Mo, V, and Hg at >5 mg l(-1)) were undetected in the harbor water by ICP-MS.     

Factor analysis and policy simulation of domestic waste classification behavior based on a multiagent study—Taking Shanghai's garbage classification as an example

Sorting garbage and recycling renewable resources is a new and effective means to address the “garbage siege.” To examine residents' classification behaviors and scientifically assess effects of policies, this study comprehensively analyzes factors influencing residents' classification behavior at the government, resident and societal dimensions and construct multiagent decision-making functions and an interaction model by Anylogic platform. The empirical results show publicity and education have the most significant impacts on classification behavior followed by classification infrastructure and subjective norms. The simulation results show publicity and education, charging policies and government subsidies significantly transform unclassified residents into classified residents and all three approaches double rates of classification behavior. From perspectives of multisubject interaction and multicenter governance, this study analyzes motivations behind classification behavior from a micro level and quantifies effects of policies from a macro level, providing a common research method and paradigm that can be used in behavior research and policy formulation.     

Assessment of urban sustainability efficiency based on general data envelopment analysis: a case study of two cities in western and eastern China

Sustainable urban development focuses on enhancing urban well-being, while also balancing the demands of urban social and economic development, natural resource consumption, and environmental pollution. This work used general data envelopment analysis to assess the urban sustainability efficiency (USE) and sustainability potential (SP) in Lanzhou and Xiamen, two cities that are characteristic of urban areas in western and eastern China. The assessment indicator system included important natural and urban welfare factors as input and output indices, respectively. The results showed that overall urban sustainability efficiency increased in Lanzhou and Xiamen from 1985 to 2010, but that the sustainability of natural resources clearly decreased. The urban sustainability efficiency of Xiamen was higher than that of Lanzhou, and the sustainability potential of Xiamen was lower than that of Lanzhou; this indicates that Xiamen performed better in terms of urban sustainable development. The urban sustainability efficiency in Xiamen has increased with increasing urban population, and the rate and scale of economic development have been higher than in Lanzhou. The assessment and analysis performed in this study show that cities with different natural resources and development characteristics have different forms, patterns, and trajectories of sustainable development.