USE OF GEOSTATISTICS TO EVALUATE WATER QUALITY CHANGES DUE TO COAL MINING1

ABSTRACT: Large variability of water quality data often makes it difficult to judge whether or not the conditions in an aquifier or a stream are deteriorating or not the conditions in an aquifer or a stream are deteriorating or improving. A technique for separation of variograms into positive and negative difference components is proposed. This technique was applied to water quality data from a requality improved with time on the stripmined and undisturbed areas, declined in a seep and an adjoining stream and remained about the same in the deep mined zone.     

Socially robust knowledge in coastal projects

Interactive modes of knowledge production offer a strategy for seeking solutions to complex environmental problems. The outcome of such knowledge production is socially robust knowledge. Social robustness refers to knowledge that is relevant and accepted by actors in the context of its application. This is achieved when knowledge is credible, salient and produced in a legitimate way. To date, only limited research has focused on how social robustness is achieved. As coastal problems are characterised by conflicting interests and major uncertainties, the coastal zone represents a relevant domain for studying socially robust knowledge. This paper analyses and presents three conditions that need to be in place if one is to achieve socially robust knowledge in coastal projects. The conditions are based on theories related to socially robust knowledge, boundary spanning, project arrangements and knowledge arrangements. The conditions specify how social robustness can be achieved through knowledge testing by boundary spanners, the involvement of diverse actors and a close connection between knowledge production and the evolving project. In a case study, these conditions are compared to developments in a Dutch coastal project involving spatial developments near the Ems estuary. The comparison highlights the relevance of the three conditions in achieving socially robust knowledge. In addition, a fourth aspect is empirically uncovered: the role of boundary spanning among project partners prior to producing knowledge. These four conditions clarify how social robustness may be achieved in coastal solutions. As such, this paper contributes to the theoretical and empirical understanding of socially robust knowledge.     

危险品运输网络优化设计研究综述

为分析当今反恐新形势下的危险品运输网络优化设计问题的研究现状,系统总结国内外关于一般场景和恐怖袭击威胁2种情况下危险品运输网络优化设计研究的主要模型和方法,梳理两者现有的研究内容,并讨论其共性及恐怖袭击威胁情景下的研究的新特点。结果发现:目前关于解决危险品运输网络优化设计问题模型的鲁棒性研究较为缺乏,尤其是模型在更为复杂和不确定性更强的恐怖袭击情景中适用性不强;危险品运输的鲁棒优化模型即使在突发事件条件下,也可以使决策者能够作出相对满意的决策;鲁棒性危险品运输网络能够规避风险扰动,可用来防止在恐怖袭击中因危险品车辆爆炸等造成更大的危害。     

Influence of Riparian Seepage Zones on Nitrate Variability in Two Agricultural Headwater Streams

Riparian seeps have been recognized for their contributions to stream flow in headwater catchments, but there is limited data on how seeps affect stream water quality. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of seeps on the variability of stream NO₃‐N concentrations in FD36 and RS, two agricultural catchments in Pennsylvania. Stream samples were collected at 10‐m intervals over reaches of 550 (FD36) and 490 m (RS) on 21 occasions between April 2009 and January 2012. Semi‐variogram analysis was used to quantify longitudinal patterns in stream NO₃‐N concentration. Seep water was collected at 14 sites in FD36 and 7 in RS, but the number of flowing seeps depended on antecedent conditions. Seep NO₃‐N concentrations were variable (0.1‐29.5 mg/l) and were often greater downslope of cropped fields compared to other land uses. During base flow, longitudinal variability in stream NO₃‐N concentrations increased as the number of flowing seeps increased. The influence of seeps on the variability of stream NO₃‐N concentrations was less during storm flow compared to the variability of base flow NO₃‐N concentrations. However, 24 h after a storm in FD36, an increase in the number of flowing seeps and decreasing streamflow resulted in the greatest longitudinal variability in stream NO₃‐N concentrations recorded. Results indicate seeps are important areas of NO₃‐N delivery to streams where targeted adoption of mitigation measures may substantially improve stream water quality.     

基于DMSP/OLS数据的江苏省城镇人口空间分异研究

人口空间分异研究是区域协调发展的基础,便捷准确地获取城镇人口全局和局域的空间信息,对于合理制定区域人口、经济和社会发展政策具有重要意义。在DMSP/OLS(夜间灯光)数据和人口数据之间的定量关联基础上,模拟出格网尺度上江苏省2012年人口密度,采用人口集中指数、空间变差函数识别人口分布的空间格局并探讨区别于行政单元尺度的人口格局形成机理。区域层面,江苏省人口空间分异呈现苏北地区"低密度点状"分布,苏南、苏中为"高密度面状"分布并存格局。城镇层面,江苏省人口空间分布结构具有4种类型,H-H型地区人口各向差异性最强,网格单元内随机变异最小;H-L型人口各向差异性最小,网格单元内随机变异较大;L-L型人口轴向均质化特征明显,网格单元随机变异较小;L-H型空间各向差异性较小,网格单元的随机变异最大。结果表明,基于DMSP/OLS夜间灯光数据反演而得到的人口格网模型具有巨大潜力,结合变差函数进行拟合分析可定量地刻画城镇内部人口分布的空间异质性特征。     

海上溢油应急物资调度双目标规划模型

为最大程度降低溢油事故造成的不利影响,提出充分考虑海上油膜漂移特性及溢油点和漂移点对救援物资需求不确定等特点,基于鲁棒优化思想,建立救援应急成本最小、应急时间最短的双目标规划模型,并基于NSGA-Ⅱ算法设计求解方法.结果 表明:决策者可根据自身对溢油事故规模的判断,得到不同应急物资调度方案,为应急出救点的选择和物资调度...     

Validation of a Lagrangian dispersion model implementing different kernel methods for density reconstruction

In this paper the inert version of a Lagrangian particle model named photochemical Lagrangian particle model (PLPM) is described and validated. PLPM implements four density reconstruction algorithms based on the kernel density estimator. All these methods are fully grid-free but they differ each other in considering local or global features of the particles distribution, in treating the Cartesian directions separately or together and in being based on receptors or particles positions in space. Each kernel has been shown to have both advantages and disadvantages, but the overall good performances of the model when compared with the well known Copenhagen and Kincaid data sets are very encouraging in view of its extension to fully chemically active simulations, currently under development.     

A robust approach for iterative contaminant source location and release history recovery

Contamination source identification is a crucial step in environmental remediation. The exact contaminant source locations and release histories are often unknown due to lack of records and therefore must be identified through inversion. Coupled source location and release history identification is a complex nonlinear optimization problem. Existing strategies for contaminant source identification have important practical limitations. In many studies, analytical solutions for point sources are used; the problem is often formulated and solved via nonlinear optimization; and model uncertainty is seldom considered. In practice, model uncertainty can be significant because of the uncertainty in model structure and parameters, and the error in numerical solutions. An inaccurate model can lead to erroneous inversion of contaminant sources. In this work, a constrained robust least squares (CRLS) estimator is combined with a branch-and-bound global optimization solver for iteratively identifying source release histories and source locations. CRLS is used for source release history recovery and the global optimization solver is used for location search. CRLS is a robust estimator that was developed to incorporate directly a modeler's prior knowledge of model uncertainty and measurement error. The robustness of CRLS is essential for systems that are ill-conditioned. Because of this decoupling, the total solution time can be reduced significantly. Our numerical experiments show that the combination of CRLS with the global optimization solver achieved better performance than the combination of a non-robust estimator, i.e., the nonnegative least squares (NNLS) method, with the same solver.     

Spatial modeling and prediction under stationary non-geometric range anisotropy

For modeling spatial processes, we propose a rich parametric class of stationary range anisotropic covariance structures that, when applied in R², greatly increases the scope of variogram contors. Geometric anisotropy, which provides the most common generalization of isotropy within stationarity, is a special case. Our class is built from monotonic isotropic correlation functions and special cases include the Matérn and the general exponential functions. As a result, our range anisotropic correlation specification can be attached to a second order stationary spatial process model, unlike ad hoc approaches to range anisotropy in the literature. We adopt a Bayesian perspective to obtain full inference and demonstrate how to fit the resulting model using sampling-based methods. In the presence of measurement error/microscale effect, we can obtain both the usual predictive as well as the noiseless predictive distribution. We analyze a data set of scallop catches under the general exponential range anisotropic model, withholding ten sites to compare the accuracy and precision of the standard and noiseless predictive distributions.     

A statistical evaluation of non-ergodic variogram estimators

Geostatistics is a set of statistical techniques that is increasingly used to characterize spatial dependence in spatially referenced ecological data. A common feature of geostatistics is predicting values at unsampled locations from nearby samples using the kriging algorithm. Modeling spatial dependence in sampled data is necessary before kriging and is usually accomplished with the variogram and its traditional estimator. Other types of estimators, known as non-ergodic estimators, have been used in ecological applications. Non-ergodic estimators were originally suggested as a method of choice when sampled data are preferentially located and exhibit a skewed frequency distribution. Preferentially located samples can occur, for example, when areas with high values are sampled more intensely than other areas. In earlier studies the visual appearance of variograms from traditional and non-ergodic estimators were compared. Here we evaluate the estimators' relative performance in prediction. We also show algebraically that a non-ergodic version of the variogram is equivalent to the traditional variogram estimator. Simulations, designed to investigate the effects of data skewness and preferential sampling on variogram estimation and kriging, showed the traditional variogram estimator outperforms the non-ergodic estimators under these conditions. We also analyzed data on carabid beetle abundance, which exhibited large-scale spatial variability (trend) and a skewed frequency distribution. Detrending data followed by robust estimation of the residual variogram is demonstrated to be a successful alternative to the non-ergodic approach.