Dynamic simulation of urban water metabolism under water environmental carrying capacity restrictions

A revised concept for urban water metabolism (UWM) is presented in this study to address the inadequacies in current research on UWM and the problems associated with the traditional urban water metabolic process. Feedback loops can be analyzed to increase the water environmental carrying capacity (WECC) of the new urban water metabolism system (UWMS) over that of a traditional UWMS. An analysis of the feedback loops of an UWMS was used to construct a system dynamics (SD) model for the system under a WECC restriction. Water metabolic processes were simulated for different scenarios using the Tongzhou District in Beijing as an example. The results for the newly developed UWM case showed that a water environment of Tongzhou District could support a population of 1.1926 × 10⁶, an irrigation area of 375.521 km², a livestock of 0.7732 × 10⁶, and an industrial value added of ¥193.14 × 10⁹ (i.e. about US$28.285× 10⁹) in 2020. A sensitivity analysis showed that the WECC could be improved to some extent by constructing new sewage treatment facilities or by expanding the current sewage treatment facilities, using reclaimed water and improving the water circulation system.     

城市道路交通可持续发展模式及其评价

首先在已建立的城市道路交通系统可持续发展评价指标体系的基础上提出了两种交通规划模式，即供需平衡模式和环保模式，然后讨论了基于这两种模式的规划方案的具体生成方法，最后，给出了各种发展模式自动评价系统的实现过程。     

An integrated assessment method of urban drainage system: A case study in Shenzhen City, China

In recent years, the urban drainage system in China is facing the dual pressure of renovation and construction. This requires that the integrated assessment for the planning and operation of the urban drainage system is obligatory. To evaluate the urban drainage system, an integrated assessment methodology based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), integrated simulation, and fuzzy assessment is established. This method is a multi-criteria decision adding app roach to the assessment of the urban drainage system comprehensively. Through the integration of the Storm Water Management Model (SWMM), a simple wastewater treatment plant model, and a surface water quality model, an integrated modelling system for the urban drainage system is developed and applied as a key tool for assessment. Using the established method, a case study in Shenzhen City has been implemented to evaluate and compare two urban drainage system reno vation plans, the distributed plan and the centralized plan. Because of the particularity of this case study, the established method is not applied entirely. Considering the water environ mental impact, ecological impact, technological feasibility, and economic cost, the integrated performance of the distri buted plan is better. As shown in this case study, the proposed method is found to be both effective and practical.     

An integrated model for structure optimization and technology screening of urban wastewater systems

The conventional approach to wastewater system design and planning considers each component separately and does not provide the optimum performance of the entire system. However, the growing concern for environmental protection, economic efficiency, and sustainability of urban wastewater systems requires an integrated modeling of subsystems and a synthetic evaluation of multiple objectives. In this study, a multi-objective optimization model of an integrated urban wastewater system was developed. The model encompasses subsystems, such as a sewer system, stormwater management, municipal wastewater treatment, and a wastewater reclamation system. The non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) was used to generate a range of system design possibilities to optimize conflicting environmental and economic objectives. Information from a knowledge base, which included rules for generating treatment trains as well as the performance characteristics of commonly used water pollution control measures, was utilized. The trade-off relationships between the objectives, total water pollution loads to the environment, and life cycle costs (which consist of investment as well as operation and maintenance costs), can be illustrated using Pareto charts. The developed model can be used to assist decision makers in the preliminary planning of system structure. A benchmark city was constructed to illustrate the methods of multi-objective controls, highlight cost-effective water pollution control measures, and identify the main pressures on urban water environment.     

城市河涌水污染特征及治理措施

通过实地调查,对广州市河涌水污染现状进行了评价,总结了城区河涌水污染特征;并采用渗流沙滤法对在线处理河涌水和采用混凝土生态膜法岸边处理河涌水的工艺技术可行性,进行了实验分析;并针对广州市河涌特点,提出了综合治理河涌水污染的技术措施。     

Ecological network determination of sectoral linkages, utility relations and structural characteristics on urban ecological economic system

Analyzing the structure and functioning of the urban system revealed ways to optimize its structure by adjusting the relationships among compartments, thereby demonstrating how ecological network analysis can be used in urban system research. Based on the account of the extended exergy utilization in the sector of urban socio-economic system, which is considered as the composition of extraction (Ex), conversion (Co), agriculture (Ag), industry (In), transportation (Tr), tertiary (Te) and households (Do) sectors, an urban ecological network model is constructed to gain insights into the economic processes oriented to sustainable urban development. Taking Beijing city as the case, the network accounting and related ecological evaluation of a practical urban economy are carried out in this study in the light of flux, efficiency, utility and structure analysis. The results showed that a large quantity of energy and resources have to be consumed to maintain the structure and function of a city. The thermodynamic efficiencies of individual sector in Beijing remain at a low level. The social system in Beijing is a highly competitive network, and there are 8 competitive relations and only two mutualistic ones. The Domestic and Agricultural sector are the major controlling factors of the system. Moreover, the assessment results of Beijing are compared with the other three socio-economic systems, Norway, UK and Italy, and the ecological network function and structure comparisons are correspondingly illuminated and discussed. The conclusions indicate that the exergy-based network analysis can be refined to become an integrative tool for evaluation, policy-making and regulation for urban socio-economic system management concerning structure and efficiency at urban levels.     

Land system architecture for urban sustainability: new directions for land system science illustrated by application to the urban heat island problem

ABSTRACT

Land system science (LSS) has expanded its research focus from the drivers of land-use and -cover change primarily in rural wildlands to include the social-environmental consequences of this change, urban areas, and sustainability practice. Land system architecture, interacting with the landscape mosaic approach in ecology, offers a special niche for the entry of rural areas and wildlands into urban sustainability research through examinations of the composition and configuration of ‘cityscapes’. Given the fine-grain data requirements of heterogeneous cityscapes, emergent land architecture-mosaic approaches have largely explored the urban heat island (UHI) problem, a topic that links LSS with the interests of urban climatology, engineering, and planning in city morphology or geometry. The subtle distinctions in the treatment of land configuration between land architecture-mosaic approaches and urban morphology-geometry approaches are identified. Several examples of the land architecture-mosaic approach illustrate the understanding gained about the UHI problem as well as its complementarity with morphology-geometry approaches. This understanding provides insights about the design of urban areas at the parcel to neighborhood scales to ameliorate extreme temperatures, an issue of increasing concern for urban areas worldwide and consistent with the sustainability problems identified by such international programs as Future Earth.     

Low-cost adsorbents for urban stormwater pollution control

• Various low-cost adsorbents are studied for capturing urban stormwater pollutants. • Adsorbents are selected based on both pollutant adsorption and unexpected leaching. • Application modes of adsorbents influence their utilization efficacy in practice. Stormwater represents a major non-point pollution source at an urban environment. To improve the treatment efficacy of stormwater infrastructure, low-cost adsorbents have increasingly gained attention over the past decades. This article aims to briefly discuss several key aspects and principles for utilization of low-cost adsorbents for urban stormwater treatment. To determine whether a low-cost adsorbent is suitable for stormwater treatment, two aspects should be carefully assessed, including: 1) its adsorption mechanisms and behaviors that can influence the binding stre.g.,h, adsorption kinetics, and treatment capacity; and 2) unwanted chemical leaching patterns that can affect the extent of water quality degradation. Furthermore, the application mode of an adsorbent in the system design influences the utilization efficiency. Adsorbents, after dosed to soil media in infrastructure, would eventually become ineffective after oversaturation. In contrast, standalone filters or innovative composite adsorbents (e.g., adsorbent-coated mulch chips) can enable a long-lasting adsorption due to periodic replacement with fresh adsorbents. The aforementioned principles play a key role in the success of urban stormwater treatment with low-cost adsorbents.     

Integrated urban ecosystem evaluation and modeling based on embodied cosmic exergy

This paper presented a thermodynamic synthesis that involved resource accounting, evaluation and modeling of urban ecosystems based on embodied cosmic exergy (EcE), which redefined embodied exergy with the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) as the reference for solar exergy. In a case study of the Beijing urban ecosystem, the major resources supporting the urban ecosystem, both from free natural resources and from the economy, were accounted for, analyzed and evaluated in the same units, Cosmic Joules (Jc). These indicators revealed the current performance of the Beijing urban ecosystem by considering five aspects of the system: EcE sources, EcE intensity, EcE welfare, environmental impacts and economic efficiency. Moreover, through the combination of the EcE synthesis with a systems dynamics, this research constructed an embodied cosmic exergy-based urban system model (EESM) using Beijing as an example of urban development. The results show that the 10 years from 2010 to 2020 will be very critical for the sustainable development of Beijing because many key factors, such as water resources, wastes and urban assets, might be confronted with great changes during this period. These changes will inevitably transform the urban system not only in its external circumstances but also in its inner structure and may lead to serious consequences. Of all the necessary resources, the most sensitive factor is water supply.     

Stormwater runoff pollution loads from an urban catchment with rainy climate in China

An older urban district in Wuhan, China, is transitioning from discharging sewage and stormwater directly into lakes, to directing the sewage to wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Dealing with polluted stormwater discharge is a great challenge. Stormwater runoff from an urban catchment with a combined sewer system was sampled and analyzed over a three-year period. Results indicate that wet weather flows account for 66%, 31%, 17%, and 13% of the total load of suspended solids (SS), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen, and total phosphorus, respectively. The first flush of COD and SS was significant in all runoff events. More than 50% of the SS and COD loads were transported by the first 30% of runoff volume. Storage and treatment of the first 10 mm from each combined sewer overflow event could reduce more than 70% of the annual COD overflow load. An integrated solution is recommended, consisting of a tank connected to the WWTP and a detention pond, to store and treat the combined sewer overflow (CSO). These results may be helpful in mitigating CSO pollution for many other urban areas in China and other developing countries.     

城市河流在城市生态建设中的意义和应用方法

城市河流是城市生态系统的重要组分之一。本文分析了城市河流在城市生态建设中的水源地,减弱城市热岛效应和洪涝灾害,绿地建设基地,景观多样性的组成,物种多样性保护,组成捷交通,亲近自然场所,自然教育标本等方面的多种意义,指出保持河流的自然地貌特征,维持自然水文过程,控制城市河流水污染,综合规划城市河流与城市建设的关系是发挥城市河流在城市生态系统中作用的基本方法。     

Calculation of the minimum ecological water requirement of an urban river system and its deployment: A case study in Beijing central region

The minimum ecological water requirements of an urban river system and water deployment are key elements in integrated water resources planning and urban ecological construction. Based on a review of ecological water requirement calculation methods and considering the different ecological functions of an urban river system, the ecological function method was used in this paper to calculate the components of the ecological water requirements of an urban river. An envelope curve-based method was proposed for assessing the minimum ecological water requirements of an urban river system. Water resources deployment strategies designed to meet the minimum ecological water requirements were described. Then, the minimum ecological water requirements of the urban river system in Beijing central region, selected as a case study, were investigated. The key parameters for assessing the minimum ecological water requirement in the Beijing urban river system were determined. Based on the ecological objectives and the current status of the different urban river systems within the Beijing central region, the minimum ecological water requirements were calculated. Different types of water sources, including rainwater, upstream water, and reclaimed water, were deployed to meet the ecological water requirements for the urban river system in the Beijing central region.     

城市循环经济发展模式

城市循环经济发展模式是在城市生态循环系统和城市基础设施系统支撑下的循环型经济系统和社会系统的有机组合和共生,主要包括城市循环型生产系统、循环型流通服务系统、循环型消费系统、循环型社会系统、城市生态循环系统以及城市基础设施系统的发展模式等内容。     

废水处理与利用生态工程Ⅱ—类型及一些案例

文章列举了污水处理与利用生态工程的主要类型。包括城市污水就地、分散、小型、地埋式、无动力处理系统 ;快速渗滤土地处理与利用系统 ;慢速渗滤土地处理与利用系统 ;芦苇湿地渗滤系统集中处理与利用城市污水。工业废水的处理与利用 ,主要通过减量、回收、转化、回用和再循环。另提供了一些案例帮助说明各类型。     

Which hedonic models can we trust to recover the marginal willingness to pay for environmental amenities?

The hedonic property value model is among our foremost tools for evaluating the economic consequences of policies that target the supply of local public goods, environmental services, and urban amenities. We design a theoretically consistent and empirically realistic Monte Carlo study of whether omitted variables seriously undermine the method’s ability to accurately identify economic values. Our results suggest that large gains in accuracy can be realized by moving from the standard linear specifications for the price function to a more flexible framework that uses a combination of spatial fixed effects, quasi-experimental identification, and temporal controls for housing market adjustment.     

Substance flow analysis for an urban drainage system of a representative hypothetical city in China

This paper discusses the use of substance flow analysis (SFA) as a tool to support quantified research on urban drainage systems. Based on the principle of mass balance, a static substance flow model is established to describe and examine the routes and intensities of water, chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) for a representative hypothetical city (RH city) in China, which is a devised and scaled city using statistical characteristics of urban circumstances at the national level. It is estimated that the annual flux of water, COD, TN and TP through the urban drainage system in 2010 was 55.1 million m³, 16037.3 t, 1649.5 t and 209.7 t, respectively. The effluent of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) was identified as the most important pathway for pollutant emissions, which contributed approximately 60% of COD, 65% of TN and 50% of TP to receiving water. During the wastewater treatment process, 1.0 million m3, 7042.5 t, 584.2 t and 161.4 t of the four studied substances had been transmitted into sludge, meanwhile 3813.0 t of COD and 394.0 t of TN were converted and emitted to the atmosphere. Compared with the representative hypothetical city of 2000, urban population and the area of urban built districts had expanded by approximately 90% and 80% respectively during the decade, resulting in a more than threefold increase in the input of substances into the urban drainage system. Thanks to the development of urban drainage systems, the total loads of the city were maintained at a similar level.     

THK引气气浮系统的研制与应用

在引进美国THK系统基础上，通过对THK系统的研究，消化和吸收，已实现THK的国产化生产，目前，国产化水平已达到80％－90％。工业废处理应用表明，THK是一种简单，节能和高效的气浮设备，非常适合在我国推广应用。     

Cyanide effluent control by freeze/thaw processing

With many northern gold mining operations the disposal of waste water from the process presents some unique problems. The level of heavy metals and cyanide is generally too high to allow discharge to the environment. Total impoundment of the effluent in tailing dams or the use of expensive treatment plants is necessary to ensure protection of the environment. The costs and dangers of these treatment methods cannot always be justified in the remote locations of these mines and alternatives must be explored.In this paper, experiments have been performed to determine the partial freezing and melting characteristics of cyanide solutions as well as the rates of natural degradation. These studies could result in a novel method to protect our northern environments and ensure the continued operation of gold mines in these regions in a safe and economic manner. A multi-pond containment system has been proposed which may be feasible in certain circumstances.     

城市污水处理企业QHSE评价指标体系

为尽快提高城市污水处理行业QHSE管理水平,结合城市污水处理企业的运营特点,通过分析城市污水处理企业QHSE管理的关键影响因素的反馈关系,确立了持续循环的评价步骤,构建了城市污水处理企业QHSE评价指标体系,并采用网络分析法和灰色评价法对模型进行量化处理和综合评价。并结合实际案例进行了验证,为污水处理企业提高QHSE水...     

Assessment and management of urbanization-induced ecological risks

The urban ecological risk incurred during the processes of urbanization has been constantly accumulating, creating a severe challenge for China to achieve sustainable urban development. At present, research on systematic evaluation of urban ecological risks is still inadequate, especially at an urban ecosystem level. In this special issue, we use Xiamen City as an example to identify the sources and receptors of urban ecological risks, to develop a methodology system of urban ecological risk assessment, and to propose a method for the management of urban ecological risks. This special issue contains 11 research articles resulting from a comprehensive research project funded by China’s National Natural Science Foundation. The innovations reported in this special issue include a framework of urban ecological risk assessment and a standardized procedure for carrying out urban ecological risk assessment using multiple stressors and endpoints.