Numerical investigation of pollutant transport characteristics inside deep urban street canyons

A validated LES model was employed to simulate the street canyons of aspect ratio (AR) 3, 5, and 10. Three, five, and eight vertically aligned primary recirculations were found for the three cases, respectively, which showed decreasing strength with decreasing height. The ground-level wind speeds were found to be very small, making it extremely difficult for the ground-level pollutants to disperse. Local maxima of turbulence intensities were found at the interfaces between the primary recirculations and the shear layer. The pollutant trajectory followed the primary recirculations. High pollutant concentration and variance were found near the buildings where wind flowed upward. Large gradients of pollutant concentration and variance were also observed at the interfaces between the primary recirculations and the shear layer. Detailed analyses of concentration budget showed that the advection terms were responsible for pollutant redistribution within primary recirculations, while the turbulent transport terms were responsible for pollutant penetration between primary recirculations as well as pollutant removal from the street canyon.     

Persistent organic pollutants in food items collected in Hong Kong

This study aims to investigate levels of POPs in meat, edible oils, nuts, milk and wine collected from Hong Kong. Naphthalene, pp-DDE, beta-, gamma-HCH and PBDE 47 were detected in most of the food items. Goose liver accumulated the highest PAHs (47.9 ng g⁻¹ wet wt), DDTs (25.6), HCHs (13.0), PCBs (4.17), PBDEs (468 pg g⁻¹ wet wt) among all the selected food. Meat and nut groups had significant (p < 0.01 or 0.05) correlations between lipid contents and concentrations of PAHs (meat: r = 0.878), HCHs (meat: r = 0.753), DDTs (meat: r = 0.937; nuts: r = 0.968) and PCBs (meat: r = 0.832; nut: r = 0.946). The concentrations of DDTs, HCHs and PCBs in vegetable oil were lower, but HCHs in fish oil were higher, when compared with other countries. The concentrations of PAHs, DDTs, PCBs and PBDEs in food tested in the present study were all below various safety guidelines.     

Biota–sediment accumulation factor (BSAF), bioaccumulation factor (BAF), and contaminant levels in prey fish to indicate the extent of PAHs and OCPs contamination in eggs of waterbirds

Samples of pond sediment, fish, and shrimp were collected from the Ramsar site at Mai Po marshes, Hong Kong (south China), and samples of pond sediment, fish, and shrimp, as well as eggs of water birds (Chinese Pond Herons (Ardeola bacchus) and Little Egrets (Egretta garzetta)), were collected from two smaller wetland sites at Jiangsu Province (mid-China), between 2004 and 2007. Accumulation levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in the biota were used to calculate biota–sediment accumulation factor (BSAF) and bioaccumulation factor (BAF). For fish and shrimp, BSAFs of OCPs (3.8–56) were greater than those of PAHs (0.12–6.3). BSAFs and BAFs of 11–79 and 4–34, respectively, were registered for OCPs in eggs of the birds and were greater than those for PAHs (0.11–1.5 and 0.02–1.3, respectively). Assuming that fish were the main prey of the birds, greater bioaccumulation of OCPs was detected for both bird species (BAFs?=?4.5–34), while accumulation of PAHs was only detected in Little Egret (BAF?=?1.3). A significant linear relationship (p?<?0.01) was observed between concentrations of OCPs in bird eggs and in the prey fish. The present study provides a new possibility of using OCP levels detected in prey fish to predict the extent of OCPs contamination in eggs of waterbirds including the endangered species, as a noninvasive method.     

An ensemble Kalman filter for atmospheric data assimilation: Application to wind tunnel data

In the previous work (Zheng et al., 2007, Zheng et al., 2009), a data assimilation method, based on ensemble Kalman filter, has been applied to a Monte Carlo Dispersion Model (MCDM). The results were encouraging when the method was tested by the twin experiment and a short-range field experiment. In this technical note, the measured data collected in a wind tunnel experiment have been assimilated into the Monte Carlo dispersion model. The uncertain parameters in the dispersion model, including source term, release height, turbulence intensity and wind direction have been considered. The 3D parameters, i.e. the turbulence intensity and wind direction, have been perturbed by 3D random fields. In order to find the factors which may influence the assimilation results, eight tests with different specifications were carried out. Two strategies of constructing the 3D perturbation field of wind direction were proposed, and the result shows that the two level strategy performs better than the one level strategy. It is also found that proper standard deviation and the correlation radius of the perturbation field play an important role for the data assimilation results.