Management issues in a Tasmanian tourist cave: potential microclimatic impacts of cave modifications

Caves can be difficult to navigate and often require physical modification to allow easy access for visitors. Single entrance caves double the access impact of each visitor. Visitors in tourist caves have direct physical effects such as the introduction of concrete and steel structures; transport of mud, dust, and nutrients; installation of lights and the exhalation of water vapour and carbon dioxide into the air. Indirect physical effects include alteration of the microclimate, both through physical modifications that change the ventilation regime and through the presence of visitors leading to changes in temperature, humidity and CO2 within the cave environment. Anthropomorphic changes to cave physical environments to aid access or to reduce backtracking can have adverse effects on the internal microclimate of cave systems with subsequent changes to the cave environment affecting the quality of decorations and cave art and the diversity of cave fauna. Although often stated that caves operate at or near a constant temperature, closer examination indicates that cave temperatures are neither static nor constant. The degree of variation depends largely on the structure and physical characteristics of the cave. Air temperature and humidity gradients between the inside and outside cave environment can result in air density differences, which create airflow, which will in turn affect the cave microclimate. As part of the development of a management framework for King Solomons Cave, Tasmania, a study of the microclimate was carried out on behalf of Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service. Analysis of the variables showed significant differences in air temperature within each site and between sites. These differences range from 4 degrees C variation at one site to 0 degrees C at another site. The data were used to model potential airflow between the cave and the external environment. Results indicate that part of the cave is dominated by airflow between the chimney and the cave entrance leading to microclimatic fluctuations, while stable climatic conditions occur at the end of the cave. Future management strategies that propose a passage from the chamber to the surface via the current end zone would create a potential for airflow induced microclimatic change, leading to a change in both the temperature and moisture regimes, necessitating the construction of an airtight double door system.     

2015-2018年衡阳市城区环境空气污染特征分析

本文利用2015~2018年衡阳市城区空气质量监测数据,分析环境空气污染特征及变化趋势。研究结果表明:2015~2018年衡阳市城区环境空气以PM2.5、PM10、O3污染为主,其中PM2.5和PM10年均值浓度呈下降趋势,O3年均值浓度呈不规则波动变化;年内时空变化上,O3呈现夏、秋季浓度高和冬、春季浓度低的特点,PM2.5和PM10呈现出夏季浓度低、冬季浓度高的特点。针对衡阳市空气污染物特征,提出了衡阳市城区空气质量改善的对策建议。     

博罗县环境空气质量变化趋势浅析

本文以博罗县2005—2011年间的环境空气监测数据为依据,采用空气污染综合指数法评价大气环境质量,并运用Spearman秩相关系数预测未来发展趋势。结果表明：博罗县环境空气质量为优,主要污染物为二氧化氮,年日平均浓度呈上升趋势,不显著。     

Multicriteria analysis of environmental quality in Taipei: public preferences and improvement strategies

The public preferences for environmental quality should be a primary consideration of planners and decision-makers in environmental systems planning. In the first stage of multicriteria analysis, a multi-attribute evaluation model for determining public preferences is formulated. The environmental indices are defined for a comparison of environmental quality in different metropolitan districts. The public preferences of the environmental quality in Taipei are obtained using the weighted average rating method. The results indicate air quality and noise pollution as main public concern. In the second stage of multicriteria analysis, strategies are proposed to improve the air quality, and criteria are established. The experts evaluated all alternative strategies according to the criteria. The alternatives are ranked applying the compromise ranking method.     

基于深度学习的大数据空气污染预报

为了更好地反映环境污染变化趋势,为环境管理决策提供及时、全面的环境质量信息,预防严重污染事件发生,开展城市空气质量预报研究是十分必要的.本文针对环境大数据时代下的城市空气质量预报,提出了一种基于深度学习的新方法.该方法通过模拟人类大脑的神经连接结构,将数据在原空间的特征表示转换到具有语义特征的新特征空间,自动地学习得到层次化的特征表示,从而提高预报性能.得益于这种方式,新方法与传统方法相比,不仅可以利用空气质量监测、气象监测及预报等环境大数据,充分考虑污染物的时空变化、空间分布,得到语义性的污染物变化规律,还可以基于其他空气污染预测方法的结果(如数值预报模式),自动分析其适用范围、优势劣势.因此,新方法通过模拟人脑思考过程实现更充分的大数据集成,一定程度上克服了现有方法的缺陷,应用上更加具有灵活性和可操作性.最后,通过实验证明新方法可以提高空气污染预报性能.     

Multiple environmental burdens and neighborhood-related health of city residents

Urban living environments are known to influence human well-being and health; however, little is known about the multidimensionality of different environmental burdens. The aim of this study is to examine the relations between multiple burdens and self-rated health of city residents in Berlin. A spatial analysis was conducted to determine neighborhood street blocks with high versus low levels of three environmental burdens (traffic noise, air pollution, lack of public green space) as study sites for a cross-sectional household questionnaire. Burden level served as a dichotomous predictor to compare residents' self-reports of neighborhood satisfaction, life satisfaction, health behavior, and psychological and physical health symptoms. Residents from high-burden blocks appraised the environmental conditions more stressful, reported poorer health behavior and were less satisfied with their neighborhood than residents from low-burden blocks. However, they did not differ in regard to more general health symptoms. Three other burdens (behavior-related noise, litter and dirt in public space, lack of urban vegetation), which could not be varied objectively, were assessed by their perceived intensity. Regression analyses of the relations between the perceived levels of all six burdens and outcomes in the total sample revealed the following: Neighborhood satisfaction could be predicted from multiple stressors and resources that co-occur independently, while more general health symptoms were related only to perceived air pollution. The results have implications for both urban planning and public health.     

陕西省人口分布的空间特征及其演变趋势

随着社会经济的不断发展,陕西省人口分布发生了明显变化.探究这种变化特征和趋势对协调区域人口的合理分布具有重要意义.采用空间自相关、人口结构指数、人口重心等研究方法,以陕西省97个县级行政区为研究单元、1990-2010年为研究区间,选取人口数和人口密度为研究对象,对陕西省人口分布的空间特征及其演变趋势进行了描述.结果表明,陕西省人口分布存在“中间高—南北低”的格局,人口密度空间分布呈正的空间相关性,人口集聚性较强.随着时间推移,集聚性趋势略有减弱,人口分布的不均衡性较显著,表现出上升趋势;人口重心向东北方向移动,移动速度有所加快.     

Urban sprawl and air quality in large US cities

This study presents the results of a paper of urban spatial structure and exceedances of the 8-h national ambient air quality standard for ozone in 45 large US metropolitan regions. Through the integration of a published index of sprawl with metropolitan level data on annual ozone exceedances, precursor emissions, and regional climate over a 13-year period, the association between the extent of urban decentralization and the average number of ozone exceedances per year, while controlling for precursor emissions and temperature, is measured. The results of this analysis support the hypothesis that large metropolitan regions ranking highly on a quantitative index of sprawl experience a greater number of ozone exceedances than more spatially compact metropolitan regions. Importantly, this relationship was found to hold when controlling for population size, average ozone season temperatures, and regional emissions of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, suggesting that urban spatial structure may have effects on ozone formation that are independent of its effects on precursor emissions from transportation, industry, and power generation facilities.     

“双碳”背景下长三角地区大气污染治理绩效审计评价

本文基于“压力—状态—响应”模型的视角,结合长三角地区客观条件构建了大气污染防治绩效评价审计指标体系。并采用极值熵权法对上述各类指标赋权,结合环境优值模型对长三角地区2016—2020年大气污染治理的效果进行了综合审计评价。研究结果表明,2016—2020年长三角地区平均环境优值整体下降了0.0178,下降幅度达27.16%,大气污染治理绩效具有明显提升趋势;上海市大气环境改善效果最佳,环境优值下降幅度为49.5%;各省（区、市）完成了《打赢蓝天保卫战三年行动计划》的废气污染物减排目标,针对影响大气环境的主要指标推出的各项监管政策得到了有效落实。     

宁夏近51年气候变化特征分析

利用宁夏10个气象站1960-2010年日气温和降水资料,对宁夏气温和降水的时空变化特征进行了分析.结果显示:①宁夏整体呈现暖干化趋势,但存在区域间差异.②近51年来宁夏年平均气温呈上升趋势,冬季升温幅度大,秋季升温幅度最小.③年平均降水量总体呈现减小趋势,春季微弱增加,冬季降水量显著增加,夏季降水微弱减少,秋季降水减少明显.④通过Kriging空间差值法分析表明,年平均气温总体呈现由西南向西北递增的趋势,中、北部增温较明显;平均年总降水量总体呈现由西南向西北递减的规律,中、北部降水量减小最为明显.     

A GIS-based approach for the screening assessment of noise and vibration impacts from transit projects

Urban transportation projects are essential in increasing the efficiency of moving people and goods within a city, and between cities. Environmental impacts from such projects must be evaluated and mitigated, as applicable. Spatial modeling is a valuable tool for quantifying the potential level of environmental consequences within the context of an environmental impact assessment (EIA) study. This paper presents a GIS-based tool for the assessment of airborne-noise and ground-borne vibration from public transit systems, and its application to an actual project. The tool is based on the US Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) approach, and incorporates spatial information, satellite imaging, geostatistical modeling, and software programming. The tool is applied on a case study of initial environmental evaluation of a light rail transit project in an urban city in the Middle East, to evaluate alternative layouts. The tool readily allowed the alternative evaluation and the results were used as input to a multi-criteria analytic framework.     

辽宁省沿海经济带经济与环境协调度时空演变研究

协调度理论已成为衡量区域经济增长与环境保护协调发展的重要理论。在阐述其理论的基础上,选取了经济与环境方面的评价指标、计算方法和模型。通过对辽宁省沿海经济带及其6市2000年、2002年、2004年、2006年、2008年、2009年的17项指标进行技术处理和分析,对经济带各市的经济与环境协调发展度进行了时空演变研究。结果表明,经济带及其6市10年间协调发展度在时间维度上呈现逐年上升,其类型由中度失调衰退型和濒临失调衰退型逐渐向中级协调发展型和高级协调发展型演变;经济带经济环境协调发展度整体水平逐年升高;经济带的经济综合实力f（x）和环境承载力g（y）差距不大,经济发展与环境保护基本保持同步,在环境承载力范围内经济综合实力有进一步发展的空间。     

Modelling deposition and air concentration of reduced nitrogen in Poland and sensitivity to variability in annual meteorology

The relative contribution of reduced nitrogen to acid and eutrophic deposition in Europe has increased recently as a result of European policies which have been successful in reducing SO(2) and NO(x) emissions but have had smaller impacts on ammonia (NH(3)) emissions. In this paper the Fine Resolution Atmospheric Multi-pollutant Exchange (FRAME) model was used to calculate the spatial patterns of annual average ammonia and ammonium (NH(4)(+)) air concentrations and reduced nitrogen (NH(x)) dry and wet deposition with a 5 km × 5 km grid for years 2002-2005. The modelled air concentrations of NH(3) and dry deposition of NH(x) show similar spatial patterns for all years considered. The largest year to year changes were found for wet deposition, which vary considerably with precipitation amount. The FRAME modelled air concentrations and wet deposition are in reasonable agreement with available measurements (Pearson's correlation coefficients above 0.6 for years 2002-2005), and with spatial patterns of concentrations and deposition of NH(x) reported with the EMEP results, but show larger spatial gradients. The error statistics show that the FRAME model results are in better agreement with measurements if compared with EMEP estimates. The differences in deposition budgets calculated with FRAME and EMEP do not exceed 17% for wet and 6% for dry deposition, with FRAME estimates higher than for EMEP wet deposition for modelled period and lower or equal for dry deposition. The FRAME estimates of wet deposition budget are lower than the measurement-based values reported by the Chief Inspectorate of Environmental Protection of Poland, with the differences by approximately 3%. Up to 93% of dry and 53% of wet deposition of NH(x) in Poland originates from national sources. Over the western part of Poland and mountainous areas in the south, transboundary transport can contribute over 80% of total (dry + wet) NH(x) deposition. The spatial pattern of the relative contribution of national sources to total deposition of NH(x) may change significantly due to the general circulation of air.     

新疆“十三五”城市空气质量评价分析

“十三五”是新疆经济、社会和环境发展的关键期.基于2015-2020年新疆14个城市空气质量年平均数据,采用三年滑动平均方法对新疆“十三五”空气质量进行评价分析.结果 表明:全区空气质量优劣依次是北疆＞东疆＞南疆,其中乌鲁木齐市三年滑动年均优良天数比例呈逐年上升趋势,而和田市与之相反,呈下降趋势,且三年滑动年均下降率达...     

Stochastical analysis of surfactant-enhanced remediation of denser-than-water nonaqueous phase liquid (DNAPL)-contaminated soils

Stochastical analysis was performed to assess the effect of soil spatial variability and heterogeneity on the recovery of denser-than-water nonaqueous phase liquids (DNAPL) during the process of surfactant-enhanced remediation. UTCHEM, a three-dimensional, multicomponent, multiphase, compositional model, was used to simulate water flow and chemical transport processes in heterogeneous soils. Soil spatial variability and heterogeneity were accounted for by considering the soil permeability as a spatial random variable and a geostatistical method was used to generate random distributions of the permeability. The randomly generated permeability fields were incorporated into UTCHEM to simulate DNAPL transport in heterogeneous media and stochastical analysis was conducted based on the simulated results. From the analysis, an exponential relationship between average DNAPL recovery and soil heterogeneity (defined as the standard deviation of log of permeability) was established with a coefficient of determination (r2) of 0.991, which indicated that DNAPL recovery decreased exponentially with increasing soil heterogeneity. Temporal and spatial distributions of relative saturations in the water phase, DNAPL, and microemulsion in heterogeneous soils were compared with those in homogeneous soils and related to soil heterogeneity. Cleanup time and uncertainty to determine DNAPL distributions in heterogeneous soils were also quantified. The study would provide useful information to design strategies for the characterization and remediation of nonaqueous phase liquid-contaminated soils with spatial variability and heterogeneity.     

Non-point source mercury emission from the Idrija Hg-mine region: GIS mercury emission model

A mercury emission model was developed to estimate non-point source mercury (Hg) emissions occurring over the year from the Idrijca River catchment, draining the area of the world's second largest Hg mine in Idrija, Slovenia. Site-specific empirical correlations between the measured Hg emission fluxes and the parameters controlling the emission (comprising substrate Hg content, soil temperature, solar radiation and soil moisture) were incorporated into the mercury emission model developed using Geographic Information System technology. In this way, the spatial distribution and significance of the most polluted sites that need to be properly managed was assessed. The modelling results revealed that annually approximately 51 kg of mercury are emitted from contaminated surfaces in the catchment (640 km(2)), highlighting that emission from contaminated surfaces contributes significantly to the elevated Hg concentrations in the ambient air of the region. Very variable meteorological conditions in the modelling domain throughout the year resulted in the high seasonal and spatial variations of mercury emission fluxes observed. Moreover, it was found that mercury emission fluxes from surfaces in the Idrija region are 3-4 fold higher than the values commonly used in models representing emissions from global mercuriferous belts. Sensitivity and model uncertainty analysis indicated the importance of knowing not only the amount but also the type of mercury species and their binding in soils in future model development.     

Using rank-order geostatistics for spatial interpolation of highly skewed data in a heavy-metal contaminated site

The spatial distribution of a pollutant in contaminated soils is usually highly skewed. As a result, the sample variogram often differs considerably from its regional counterpart and the geostatistical interpolation is hindered. In this study, rank-order geostatistics with standardized rank transformation was used for the spatial interpolation of pollutants with a highly skewed distribution in contaminated soils when commonly used nonlinear methods, such as logarithmic and normal-scored transformations, are not suitable. A real data set of soil Cd concentrations with great variation and high skewness in a contaminated site of Taiwan was used for illustration. The spatial dependence of ranks transformed from Cd concentrations was identified and kriging estimation was readily performed in the standardized-rank space. The estimated standardized rank was back-transformed into the concentration space using the middle point model within a standardized-rank interval of the empirical distribution function (EDF). The spatial distribution of Cd concentrations was then obtained. The probability of Cd concentration being higher than a given cutoff value also can be estimated by using the estimated distribution of standardized ranks. The contour maps of Cd concentrations and the probabilities of Cd concentrations being higher than the cutoff value can be simultaneously used for delineation of hazardous areas of contaminated soils.     

公众参与对环境治理效果的影响——基于阶梯理论的实证研究

近年来,公众已经成为中国环境治理中不可或缺的力量,公众参与的方式和渠道也在不断拓展和丰富。为考察不同类型公众参与方式对环境治理效果的影响差异,本文基于公众参与阶梯理论,选取四类公众参与方式和四类污染物,结合我国2008—2017年30个省份数据,利用面板数据回归模型进行了实证检验。结果表明,横向比较不同类型的公众参与方式,公众环境来访对环境治理的促进效果优于环境信息公开和环保网络舆论,而政协提案、人大议案的积极效应尚不显著。纵向比较不同类型的污染物治理效果,公众参与能显著促进大气污染物的减排,对噪声和固体废物污染效果的影响次之,而在水污染治理中的作用较不理想。建议政府进一步优化健全环境信息公开机制,并重视公众层面的环境诉求,建立公众与地方生态环境部门的良好互动机制,同时鼓励公众通过新媒体渠道参与环境治理。     

基于SML指数的环境回弹效应分析：模型与测算

本文通过搭建环境回弹效应理论框架,采用熵权法构造各地区综合环境污染指数,利用Sequential Malmquist-Luenberger指数全要素生产率模型测度技术进步对经济增长的贡献率,定量评估了1999—2017年我国30个省份的环境回弹效应,识别了环境回弹效应时序演变和区域差异,并进一步利用空间分析技术探究环境回弹效应的空间分布特征。研究表明:样本期内各省份环境回弹效应均值集中在-13.23%~29.63%,全国平均环境回弹效应为10.42%,实际减污率仅为65.74%;时序特征上,环境回弹效应与技术进步有部分相关性,但存在滞后作用,经济发展水平和技术溢出效应是主要的异质性来源;空间特征上,环境回弹效应的区域差异显著,但具有空间相关性,地理因素在解释环境回弹效应的影响因素中不容忽视;全局自相关检验表明2006—2011年各省份环境回弹效应呈显著的正自相关,空间集聚特征明显。建议进一步挖掘环境降污空间,加快经济增长与环境污染的脱钩,关注区域协同减排,是改善污染治理的有效措施。     

Skewed Riskscapes and Environmental Injustice: A Case Study of Metropolitan St. Louis

This article presents a case study of Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) air pollution exposure risks across metropolitan St. Louis. The first section critically reviews environmental justice research and related barriers to environmental risk management. Second, the paper offers a conventional analysis of the spatial patterns of TRI facilities and their surrounding census block group demographics for metropolitan St. Louis. Third, the article describes the use of an exposure risk characterization for 319 manufacturers and their air releases of more than 126 toxic pollutants. This information could lead to more practical resolutions of urban environmental injustices. The analysis of TRIs across metropolitan St. Louis shows that minority and low-income residents were disproportionately closer to industrial pollution sources at nonrandom significance levels. Spatial concentrations of minority residents averaged nearly 40% within one kilometer of St. Louis TRI sites compared to 25% elsewhere. However, one-fifth of the region's air pollution exposure risk over a decade was spatially concentrated among only six facilities on the southwestern border of East St. Louis. This disproportionate concentration of some of the greatest pollution risk would never be considered in most conventional environmental justice analyses. Not all pollution exposure risk is average, and the worst risks deserve more attention from environmental managers assessing and mitigating environmental injustices.