Transition to a low-carbon city: lessons learned from Suzhou in China

Climate change has become one of the most serious challenges facing humanity; developing a low-carbon economy provides new opportunities for addressing this issue. Building a low-carbon city has been pursued by people with a high degree of enthusiasm in China. Different from actions at the national level and distinct from practices of developed countries, low-carbon development in Chinese cities should be placed on diverse concerns. Taking Suzhou of Jiangsu Province of China as a case city, this paper adopts a scenario analysis approach to explore strategic focal points in the transition to a low-carbon city. Within this transition, we mainly focus on the different contributions from two factors-economic restructuring and technological upgrading. Scenario analysis results show that 1) in the case of no breakthrough technologies, it is difficult to achieve absolute emission reductions; 2) technologies involved in optimizing energy structure and improving energy efficiency of basic service sectors should be highly emphasized in local planning; 3) in comparison with technological upgrading, economic structural adjustment could be a stronger contributor to mitigation, which is one of the main differences from developed countries. However, the key issue of economic restructuring is to promote the growth of emerging low-carbon industries, which requires not only a strategic choice of new industries but also an introduction of advanced low-carbon technologies. It is also found that establishing a local carbon emissions accounting system is a prerequisite and the first priority for realizing a low-carbon transition and government capacity buildings should be strengthened accordingly.     

Competitive adsorption and desorption of copper and lead in some soil of North China

The competitive adsorption and desorption of Pb(II) and Cu(II) ions in the soil of three sites in North China were investigated using single and binary metal solutions with 0.01 mol·L^-1 CaCl₂ as background electrolyte. The desorption isotherms of Pb(II) and Cu(II) were similar to the adsorption isotherms, which can be fitted well by Freundlich equation (R₂>0.96). The soil in the three sites had greater sorption capacities for Pb(II) than Cu(II), which was affected strongly by the soil characteristics. In the binary metal solution containing 1∶1 molar ratio of Pb(II) and Cu(II), the total amount of Pb(II) and Cu(II) adsorption was affected by the simultaneous presence of the two metal ions, indicating the existence of adsorption competition between the two metal ions. Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy was used to investigate the interaction between soil and metal ions, and the results revealed that the carboxyl and hydroxyl groups in the soil were the main binding sites of metal ions.     

Determination of persistent organic pollutants by gas chromatography/laser multiphoton ionization/time-of-flight mass spectrometry

An authentic mixture of polychlorinated biphenyls was measured using a short wide-bore capillary column for the group separation of major components present in an actual sample of Kanechlor. The limits of detection were improved by ca. 2 fold in comparison with those obtained using a conventional capillary column, since the retention time was reduced and the amount of analytes introduced into the mass spectrometer per unit time could be increased. On the other hand, surface-water and sediment samples containing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were collected from the river located in the vicinity of a waste water treatment plant. Even acenaphthylene, a minor component of the mixture could be measured for the sediment sample, and the concentrations were determined for several heavy PAHs. As demonstrated, a technique involving laser multiphoton ionization/time-of-flight mass spectrometry was useful as a sensitive and selective analytical tool for the trace analysis of persistent organic pollutants in an environmental sample.     

Optimal locations of monitoring stations in water distribution systems under multiple demand patterns: a flaw of demand coverage method and modification

A flaw of demand coverage method in solving optimal monitoring stations problem under multiple demand patterns was identified in this paper. In the demand coverage method, the demand coverage of each set of monitoring stations is calculated by accumulating their demand coverage under each demand pattern, and the impact of temporal distribution between different time periods or demand patterns is ignored. This could lead to miscalculation of the optimal locations of the monitoring stations. To overcome this flaw, this paper presents a Demand Coverage Index (DCI) based method. The optimization considers extended period unsteady hydraulics due to the change of nodal demands with time. The method is cast in a genetic algorithm framework for integration with Environmental Protection Agency Net (EPANET) and is demonstrated through example applications. Results show that the set of optimal locations of monitoring stations obtained using the DCI method can represent the water quality of water distribution systems under multiple demand patterns better than the one obtained using previous methods.     

Characterization of soil low-molecular-weight organic acids in the Karst rocky desertification region of Guizhou Province, China

Soil low-molecular-weight (LMW) organic acids play important roles in the soil-forming process and the cycling of nutrients in Karst regions. In this study, we quantified the contents of LMW organic acids (including lactate, acetate, formate, malate, and oxalate) in soil solution over the Karst region of Guizhou Province, China using ion chromatography. The concentration of total LMW organic acids in topsoil solution ranged from 0.358 to 1.823 μmol·g^-1, with an average of 0.912 μmol·g^-1. The mean concentrations of lactate, acetate, formate, malate, and oxalate were 0.212±0.089, 0.302±0.228, 0.301±0.214, 0.014±0.018 and 0.086±0.118 μmol·g^-1, respectively. There were also significant difference in the contents of these acids among four phases of rocky desertification, and their concentrations decreased with the aggravation of rocky desertification. The concentrations of the LMW organic acids were significantly positive correlated each other. Significant positive correlations were also observed among individual LMW organic acids in soil solution, and between them and soil available P, available K, exchangeable Ca, respectively. Furthermore, the concentrations of LMW organic acids were significantly positively correlated with inorganic anions (chlorides, nitrates, and sulfates) in Karst topsoil solution. Therefore, the concentrations of soil LMW organic acids might be one of driving force in the Karst rock desertification process in Guizhou Province.     

Threshold management in a coupled economic–ecological system

Economic analysis of optimal ecosystem management in the presence of a threshold has typically ignored the potential for induced behavioral responses. This paper contributes to the literature on non-convex ecosystem management by considering the implications of a particular behavioral response in a regional economy – that of amenity-led growth – to changes in ecosystem services generated by a lake ecosystem subject to a eutrophication threshold. The essential policy challenge is to achieve optimal levels of lake nutrients and urbanization given that improvements to water quality will induce additional migration and urbanization in the region with attendant ecological impacts. We show that policies that ignore the recursive relationship between urbanization and water quality unintentionally exacerbate boom-bust cycles of regional growth and decline and risk pushing the system towards long-run economic decline. In contrast, the optimal policy accounts for the behavioral feedbacks to improved ecosystem services, and balances regional growth and ecological degradation.     

三唑酮对大型溞21天慢性毒性效应

三唑类杀菌剂是一种在农业上广泛应用的广谱性杀菌剂.三唑类杀菌剂在农田施用后能够向土壤深处迁移和扩散,从而污染土壤和地下水体,因此三唑类杀菌剂对土壤生态环境能够造成一定的破坏.选择三唑酮为研究对象,参照经济合作与发展组织(Organization for Economic Co-operation and Develop...     

高效填料塔生物反应器处理制药废水处理厂含硫臭气

采用装有特制ZX01型填料的生物反应器,对某药厂废水处理厂产生的含硫臭气进行了近4个月的连续脱臭试验.结果表明:该填料塔生物反应器的最大容积负荷N_v≤204g/(m³·h)时,H₂S去除率接近100%,H₂S代谢产物主要以SO₄^2-为主.采用少量含N、P等营养物的二次沉淀池出水为喷淋水,其最适喷淋率为3.56L/(L·d).该填料塔有较强的抗负荷冲击能力,塔内阻抗低,无堵塞现象,无需经常进行反冲洗,可长期稳定运行.     

基于累积Logistic模型的行人交通事故严重程度分析及对策研究

为了准确分析影响行人交通事故严重程度的各项因素,引入累积Logistic模型研究人、车、路、环境及事故特征与行人事故严重程度之间的关系.以美国北卡罗来纳州夏洛特市2016年的行人交通事故数据为样本,通过聚类压缩、共线性检验和预测力分析,从人、车、路、环境及事故特征5个方面选取16个因素作为自变量,事故严重程度作为因变量,构建行人交通事故严重程度预测模型来分析仅财产损失事故、受伤事故和死亡事故的影响因素,并引入弹性分析量化各显著因素的影响程度,检验结果显示模型拟合良好.结果表明,在0.05的显著性水平下,事故形式、事故发生时段、车辆类型、照明条件、行人年龄段、行人饮酒情况6个因素与事故严重程度显著相关.最后针对性地提出了行人事故预防对策.研究结果有助于交通管理者采取合理的策略来降低行人交通事故严重程度.     

基于危化品事故案例的决策规则提取算法研究

为充分解析文本形式的危化品事故案例,探讨事故类型与大量事故致因间的因果关联,从化工行业入手,通过扎根理论对175起危化品事故案例进行因素提取,共确定5个子系统、19个因素、80个子因素,提出基于事故生命周期的事故致因框架;在此基础上,提出改进的Gra-Apriori算法,以解决经典的Apriori无法考虑属性类别关系的...