Managing water services in tropical regions: From land cover proxies to hydrologic fluxes

Watershed investment programs frequently use land cover as a proxy for water-based ecosystem services, an approach based on assumed relationships between land cover and hydrologic outcomes. Water flows are rarely quantified, and unanticipated results are common, suggesting land cover alone is not a reliable proxy for water services. We argue that managing key hydrologic fluxes at the site of intervention is more effective than promoting particular land-cover types. Moving beyond land cover proxies to a focus on hydrologic fluxes requires that programs (1) identify the specific water service of interest and associated hydrologic flux; (2) account for structural and ecological characteristics of the relevant land cover; and, (3) determine key mediators of the target hydrologic flux. Using examples from the tropics, we illustrate how this conceptual framework can clarify interventions with a higher probability of delivering desired water services than with land cover as a proxy.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-014-0578-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Wastewater treatment plants and landfills emit volatile methyl siloxanes (VMSs) to the atmosphere: investigations using a new passive air sampler

Volatile methyl siloxanes (VMSs) are a class of chemicals with an increasing range of applications and widespread distribution in the environment. Passive air samplers (PAS) comprising sorbent-impregnated polyurethane-foam (SIP) disks were first calibrated and then deployed around two wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and at two landfill sites to investigate inputs of VMSs to air. SIP-derived air concentrations for ΣVMSs (ng/m³) at background sites on the perimeter of the WWTP were 479 ± 82.3 and comparable to results for the upwind samples at the landfills (333 ± 194). Order of magnitude higher concentrations of ΣVMSs (ng/m³) were found for on-site samples at the WWTPs (3980 ± 2620) and landfills (4670 ± 3360). Yearly emissions (kg/yr) to air were estimated and ranged from 60-2100 and 80-250, respectively, for the cyclic VMSs. These findings demonstrate and quantify for the first time, waste sector emissions of VMSs to the atmosphere.     

Impact of different land uses on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon contamination in coastal stream sediments

PAHs are ubiquitous environmental pollutants that can cause adverse health and ecological effects. In the present study, we examined the impact of land use on the concentration and composition of PAHs in 28 coastal stream sediments on the Island of Oahu, Hawaii. In densely populated urban areas, the concentration range of total PAHs in the stream sediments affected by mixed residential and industrial activities (RI) are 0.40-9.05 ppm, which is significantly higher than the 0.36-4.21 ppm detected in the stream sediments affected predominantly by urban residential land uses (UR). The stream sediments affected by agricultural activities (AG) reported a concentration range of 0.09-2.14 ppm, which is lower than those of the RI and UR stream sediments. The molecular weight of PAH is a factor, as only high molecular weight (HMW) PAHs were significantly affected by land uses (ANOVA P = 0.009). Correlation analysis showed that only in the UR stream sediments were significant correlations observed between PAH concentration and two anthropogenic indicators: population density (r = 0.57, P = 0.027) and vehicle density (r = 0.55, P = 0.034). The fractional concentrations of PAHs were analyzed by using PCA analysis, which led to the separate clustering of the RI and AG stream sediments and suggest distinct PAH sources between the two land uses. Two PAH source indicators, including Ant/(Ant + Phe) and Fl/(Fl + Py), indicates that PAHs sources in the RI stream sediments are most likely of petroleum origin, while PAHs in the UR and AG stream sediments most likely came from combustion activities. In addition, the concentration and relative potency of carcinogenic PAHs in the coastal stream sediments exhibited similar patterns as the total PAH concentration with respect to land uses.     

Mercury in urban soils with various types of land use in Beijing, China

Mercury (Hg) concentration was investigated for 127 urban soil samples collected from business area (BA), classical garden (CG), culture and education area (CEA), public green space (PGS), residential area (RA) and roadside area (RSA) in Beijing. The median of Hg concentration in Beijing was 0.26 mg/kg. The value in CG was much higher than the other 5 types of land use, which was due to the historical use of Hg. More than 87% of the samples were not contaminated according to the guideline values of China, UK, Canada, and USEPA. Spatial distribution map revealed that Hg concentration showed a decreasing trend from the center to the suburb, it increased with the age of the urban area. Hg contamination in urban area of Beijing is marked by features of non-point sources associated with human activities, and it is most likely to be the common characteristics of Hg contamination in cities.     

扬州市土地利用与覆盖的遥感监测

应用遥感技术监测分析扬州市2009—2012年土地利用与覆盖状况。结果表明，扬州市土地利用及覆盖以耕地、城乡工矿居民用地及水域为主，主要生态红线区土地覆盖类型未发生人为改变，生态环境状况总体良好，呈略有改善的态势。提出，应坚持开展污染治理和生态建设，优化发展空间，统筹城乡建设用地管理。     

基于Landsat-8数据和劈窗算法的地表温度反演及城市热岛效应研究

陆地表面温度(Land Surface Temperature,LST)是地表能量平衡组分中的一个重要参数。随着卫星遥感技术的快速发展,遥感反演成为获取区域LST的一个重要手段。目前已有学者提出多种基于遥感数据反演LST的算法,其中劈窗算法被证明是一种精度较高的算法。基于Landsat-8卫星30 m空间分辨率的陆地成像仪(OLI)数据和100 m分辨率的热红外传感器(TIRS)数据,采用劈窗算法计算了无锡地区的LST,并采用地面实测水温数据和同步的MODIS温度产品对Landsat-8的计算结果进行了验证和对比分析。结果表明:基于Landsat-8数据和劈窗算法获取的LST精度较高,误差1K。在计算的LST结果基础上,进一步提取了热场变异指数来分析城市热岛空间分布特征,给出了城市热岛效应的定量化描述,并就不同地表覆盖类型对热岛效应的影响进行了分析。     

苏州市不同土地利用方式对碳排放影响的初步分析

利用苏州市2005—2010年土地利用以及能源消耗数据，对苏州市碳排放进行了估算，结果表明，2005—2010年苏州市碳排放呈逐年增加趋势，建设用地是主要的碳源，林地是主要的碳汇。并根据结果提出了关于减少碳排放的几点建议。     

国家生态文明试验区(贵州)经济增速与植被恢复协调发展

以国家生态文明试验区(贵州)作为研究区,以植被覆盖度(FVC)作为研究对象,基于2000~2019年的NDVI数据分析了贵州省近 20年FVC的时空演变特征,利用地理探测器方法识别并量化了经济持续增速下维持植被恢复的主要驱动力,结果表明:(1)近20年来贵州省FVC整体呈增加趋势,FVC分布整体水平较高,主要以中等、中高和高度覆盖为主,三者面积占比之和约为89.7%,年均增长率为0.52%,平均FVC为0.53.(2)近20年来贵州省FVC变化趋势以轻微改善、基本不变为主,两者面积占比之和为68.94%,改善区域面积占比为57.93%,西部区域得到明显改善和提升,退化区域主要集中在城镇周边,总体动态变化趋于稳定且向好改善.(3)FVC空间分布格局演变深受人类活动与自然环境因子的双重影响,且人类活动对于植被恢复的驱动作用更强,国内生产总值(GDP)和降水是经济持续增速下维持植被恢复的人类活动与自然环境因子主导驱动力.(4)积极推动产业结构优化升级、大力推进第三产业快速发展以及不断贯彻落实退耕还林还草政策等积极的人类活动为贵州省实现经济增速与植被恢复协调发展的“双赢”局面做出了巨大贡献.     

兴化市生态环境遥感动态监测与分析

基于遥感(RS)和地理信息系统(GIS)技术,对兴化市的生态环境状况作分析。以2005年和2012年的影像图为数据源,经过图像预处理,通过解译与分类,得到该市2个时期土地利用状况的变化情况。在此基础上,对2个时期的土地利用类型作对比,结果表明,耕地面积减少明显,城镇、农村居民点和其他建设用地面积增加突出。分别计算2个时期的生物丰度指数和植被覆盖指数,并分析了影响生态环境的主要因素。     

Influence of urban spatial and socioeconomic parameters on PM2.5 at subdistrict level: A land use regression study in Shenzhen, China

The intraurban distribution of PM_2.5 concentration is influenced by various spatial, socioeconomic, and meteorological parameters. This study investigated the influence of 37 parameters on monthly average PM_2.5 concentration at the subdistrict level with Pearson correlation analysis and land-use regression (LUR) using data from a subdistrict-level air pollution monitoring network in Shenzhen, China. Performance of LUR models is evaluated with leave-one-out-cross-validation (LOOCV) and holdout cross-validation (holdout CV). Pearson correlation analysis revealed that Normalized Difference Built-up Index, artificial land fraction, land surface temperature, and point-of-interest (POI) numbers of factories and industrial parks are significantly positively correlated with monthly average PM_2.5 concentrations, while Normalized Difference Vegetation Index and Green View Factor show significant negative correlations. For the sparse national stations, robust LUR modelling may rely on a priori assumptions in direction of influence during the predictor selection process. The month-by-month spatial regression shows that RF models for both national stations and all stations show significantly inflated mean values of R² compared with cross-validation results. For MLR models, inflation of both R² and R²_CV was detected when using only national stations and may indicate the restricted ability to predict spatial distribution of PM_2.5 levels. Inflated within-sample R² also exist in the spatiotemporal LUR models developed with only national stations, although not as significant as spatial LUR models. Our results suggest that a denser subdistrict level air pollutant monitoring network may improve the accuracy and robustness in intraurban spatial/spatiotemporal prediction of PM_2.5 concentrations.