A PARTITIONING PROCEDURE FOR WATER QUALITY MANAGEMENT MODELS1

ABSTRACT: An improved computational procedure for solving water quality management models containing interacting pollutants and control policies is presented. The method is developed with respect to the specific problem of minimizing the costs of basin-wide thermal and organic pollution control to meet water quality standards. It views the problem in partitioned form where a master problem is used to find cooling levels for thermal polluters while subproblems determine optimal organic pollutant reductions for fixed cooling levels. A gradient based search procedure is used to solve the master problem. Computational results for several river systems are presented. Application of the method to other water quality management models is suggested.     

Phosphorus runoff relationships for Louisiana Coastal Plain soils amended with poultry litter

Long-term application of poultry (Gallus gallus domesticus) litter has built high levels of P in certain Coastal Plain soils of north Louisiana. However, soil P/runoff P relationships for soil and environmental conditions of the area have not been examined. This study measured soil P (total, Bray 1, Bray 2, Mehlich 3, resin-exchangeable, and water-extractable) and runoff P (dissolved P, DP; and total P, TP) at four pasture sites previously amended with poultry litter. Sites varied in soil P due to annual litter applications ranging from 1 to more than 20. Three replicated plots at each site were subjected to simulated rainfalls over 2 yr, and concentrations of DP and TP in runoff were measured and related to soil P. This allowed examination of soil P/runoff P relationships and their changes over time. Runoff DP was also related to DP desorbed from surface soil in a miscible displacement experiment. Among measures of soil P, only resin-exchangeable and water-extractable P showed significant decreases over 2 yr. These measures of soil P explained 54 to 64% of the variability in runoff DP data. However, the miscible displacement technique proved the best indicator of runoff DP, explaining 70% of the variability. Runoff varied among sites (decreasing with increasing years of litter application), limiting the predictive capability of the soil extraction methods. Linking runoff characteristics with miscible displacement data may be a useful predictive tool and warrants further examination.     

Simultaneous monitoring of atmospheric methane and speciated non-methane hydrocarbon concentrations using Peltier effect sub-ambient pre-concentration and gas chromatography

Sub-ambient trapping, used to pre-concentrate atmospheric samples for non-methane hydrocarbon (NMHC) analysis by gas chromatography, can also be used to measure ambient methane concentrations. Above a sample volume of 40 ml, a dynamic equilibrium is established between ambient and trapped methane allowing for simultaneous quantitative determinations of methane and NMHC. The temperature stability of the trap is critical for quantitative methane analysis and this can be achieved by Peltier effect cooling. Simultaneous measurements of methane and NMHC reduce the equipment required for field trips and can ease the interpretation and modelling of atmospheric data. The feasibility for deployment of the system in remote locations was demonstrated by running the apparatus virtually unattended for a 5-day period. The correlations between the concentrations of methane, ethane and ethene measured during this period are discussed.     

Measuring eddy covariance fluxes of ammonia using tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy

Field measurements of NH₃ fluxes using an eddy covariance technique were made for a total of 60 days between July and September 2002 at an intensively managed grassland in Southern Scotland. The collected data demonstrate the suitability of a tuneable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS) system coupled with a sonic anemometer for eddy covariance measurements. The novelty of these measurements is the application to ammonia, which has only become measurable using TDLAS techniques recently, because of its small ambient concentration. Data presented in this paper show typical features of the fluxes and concentration for the summer season. NH₃ concentration and flux values are in a similar range to previous studies using flux gradient methods at the same field site, although the particularly wet season reduced the concentration of NH₃ in the air. For an example day, measured NH₃ fluxes ranged between ?11 and 44 ng m^?2 s^?1 with an average value of 3.78 ng m^?2 s^?1 indicating a small net emission from the vegetation. Spectral analysis executed on the data shows the percentage of flux carried by the small eddies (from 0.2 to 2 m) suggesting that high detection frequency instruments are particularly suitable for estimating NH₃ fluxes between atmosphere and vegetation.     

Application of tracer ratio and inverse dispersion methods with boat-based plume measurements to estimate ammonia emissions from seabird colonies

Ammonia emissions from two contrasting seabird colonies in Scotland were measured, based on the determination of atmospheric concentrations downwind of the colonies. Atmospheric concentrations of ammonia (NH₃) across the downwind plume were compared with the inverse application of a Gaussian dispersion model (ID) to calculate the modelled NH₃ emission that would generate the measured cross-wind-integrated plume concentration. In parallel, a tracer gas (sulphur hexafluoride, SF₆) was released from the colonies with air samples taken to allow determination of SF₆ concentrations. On the basis of the known emission rate of SF₆, the magnitude of ammonia emissions was estimated by the cross-wind-integrated tracer ratio (TR) of NH₃/SF₆ concentrations. Coupled with data on annual bird attendance, the measurements indicate annual emissions from the Isle of May and the Bass Rock of 18 and 132 tonnes NH₃-N year^?1, respectively. The measured NH₃ emissions were compared with estimates of seabird nitrogen excretion to estimate the proportion of excreted N that is volatilised as NH₃ (F _Nr). The emission estimates of the two methods compared favourably, giving 4 and 6 kg NH₃-N h^?1 (F _Nr = 15%) for the Isle of May for the ID and TR methods, respectively, and 21 and 25 kg NH₃-N h^?1 (F _Nr = 50%) for the Bass Rock for the ID and TR methods, respectively. The results provide the first measurement-based estimates to allow regional up scaling of ammonia emissions from seabirds.     

Young females' attention toward road safety images: An ERP study of the revised reinforcement sensitivity theory

Objective: This study examined whether reward and punishment sensitivities, as conceptualized by Gray and McNaughton's revised reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST), influenced young female drivers' attention toward a series of positive and negative antispeeding advertisement images. Young females' increasing crash risk is associated with their engagement in risky behaviors, which, in turn, has been associated with a stronger behavioral approach system (BAS; sensitive to rewards). It was predicted that individuals with a stronger BAS would elicit larger N100 and N200 mean amplitudes (reflecting greater attention) toward the positive images. Similar associations were predicted in relation to the fight–flight–freeze system (FFFS; sensitive to punishments) for negative images.

Method: Twenty-four female drivers (17–25 years; final N = 16) completed Corr-Cooper's RST-Personality Questionnaire, prior to undergoing an event-related potential computerized visual task (i.e., oddball paradigm) that included positive, negative, and neutral images as targets against checkerboard image distractors.

Results: Contrary to expectations, individuals with a stronger BAS (Reward Reactivity and Impulsivity) demonstrated significantly larger N200 mean amplitudes at the Cz electrode site on presentation of the negative images than those with a weaker BAS. No other significant RST effects were found.

Conclusions: These findings provide some preliminary objective support for the use of negative emotion-based road safety advertisements for young females. Further, this study provides support for using psychophysiological measures to enhance understanding of traffic injury persuasion.