兰州冬季大气污染来源分析

利用WRF(天气研究与预报模式)输出的高分辨率气象数据驱动HYSPLIT_4.9(混合单粒子拉格朗日轨迹模式),结合PSCF(潜在源贡献因子)和CWT(权重浓度轨迹分析)模拟研究复杂地形下兰州城市尺度大气污染物局地输送特征、潜在源区及其对空气质量的影响. 结果表明:2002—2008年影响兰州城区冬季12月空气质量的轨迹可分为5类,输送类型可分为城区内输送和城区外输送. 第1、3类轨迹出现频率均大于20%且污染轨迹出现频率均大于38%,是污染物的主要输送路径,对应潜在源区为兰州城关区东北部和榆中县东部,这2个源区对ρ(PM₁₀)的影响最大,对ρ(SO₂)的影响最小,对ρ(PM₁₀)、ρ(SO₂)和ρ(NO₂)的贡献分别超过200、80和60 μg/m3. 来自榆中县的第4类轨迹和兰州西固区的第5类轨迹易造成大气重污染,而来自皋兰县的第2类轨迹属于清洁轨迹. 兰州冬季污染既受局地输送的影响,也与地面天气形势密切相关.      

Sustainable resource management coupled to resilient germplasm to provide new intensive cereal–grain–legume–livestock systems in the dry savanna

Sustainable resource management is the critical agricultural research and development challenge in sub-Saharan Africa. The accumulated knowledge on soil management gathered over the last 10 years, combined with solid crop improvement and plant health research at farmers’ level, has brought us to a stage where we can now address with confidence the intensification of cereal–grain–legume-based cropping systems in the dry savanna of West Africa in a sustainable and environmentally positive manner.Two sustainable farming systems that greatly enhance the productivity and sustainability of integrated livestock systems have been developed and implemented in the dry savanna of Nigeria. These are: (i) maize (Zea mays L.)–promiscuous soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] rotations that combine high nitrogen fixation and the ability to kill large numbers of Striga hermonthica seeds in the soil; and (ii) miflet [Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaerth] and dual-purpose cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.]. Improvement of the cropping systems in the dry savanna has been driven by the adoption of promiscuously nodulating soybean varieties (in particular TGx 1448-2E) and dual-purpose cowpea. The rate of adoption is very high, even in the absence of an efficient seed distribution system. The number of farmers cultivating the improved varieties increased by 228% during the last 3 years. Increased production of promiscuous soybean has been stimulated by increased demand from industries and home utilization. Production in Nigeria was estimated at 405,000 t in 1999 compared to less than 60,000 t in 1984. Economic analysis of these systems shows already an increase of 50–70% in the gross incomes of adopting farmers compared to those still following the current practices, mainly continuous maize cultivation. Furthermore, increases in legume areas of 10% in Nigeria (about 30,000 ha in the northern Guinea savanna) and increases of 20% in yield have translated into additional fixed nitrogen valued annually at US$ 44 million. This reflects, at the same time, an equivalent increase in land-use productivity, and with further spread of the improved crops, there are excellent prospects for additional economic and environmental benefits from a very large recommendation domain across West Africa.     

KOH活化小麦秸秆生物炭对废水中四环素的高效去除

活化是提高生物炭吸附性能的重要手段.以小麦秸秆为研究对象,KOH为活化剂,制备KOH活化生物炭（K-BC）,同时制备原状生物炭（BC）作为对照.对生物炭进行比表面积和孔径、元素分析、XPS、FTIR、Raman、XRD和pH_pzc等表征,考察KOH活化对生物炭理化性质的影响,并探究生物炭对水体中四环素的吸附性能和机制.结果表明,KOH活化之后生物炭的比表面积和孔体积可达996.4 m²·g^-1和0.45 cm³·g^-1.KOH活化会制造更多的碳结构缺陷,影响生物炭的官能团和表面电性.拟二级动力学和Langmuir模型可以较好地拟合生物炭吸附四环素的过程.环境温度升高能提高生物炭对四环素的吸附量.K-BC吸附四环素是自发、吸热和无序度增加的过程.K-BC对四环素的最大吸附量理论可达到491.19 mg·g^-1（实验温度为45℃）.结合吸附后生物炭的Raman、FTIR和XPS表征,发现孔隙填充和π-π作用是K-BC吸附四环素的主要机制,氢键和络合作用也发挥重要作用.此外,K-BC还具有良好的循环使用性能.综上所述,KOH活化小麦秸秆生物炭是有效和可行的,可用于废水中四环素的去除.     

Bechstein’s bats maintain individual social links despite a complete reorganisation of their colony structure

Several social mammals, including elephants and some primates, whales and bats, live in multilevel societies that form temporary subgroups. Despite these fission–fusion dynamics, group members often maintain long-term bonds. However, it is unclear whether such individual links and the resulting stable social subunits continue to exist after a complete reorganisation of a society, e.g. following a population crash. Here, we employed a weighted network analysis on 7,109 individual roosting records collected over 4 years in a wild Bechstein’s bat colony. We show that, in response to a strong population decline, the colony’s two stable social subunits fused into a non-modular social network. Nevertheless, in the first year after the crash, long-term bonds were still detectable, suggesting that the bats remembered previous individual relationships. Our findings are important for understanding the flexibility of animal societies in the face of dramatic changes and for the conservation of social mammals with declining populations.

     

Could wastewater analysis be a useful tool for China? — A review

Analysingwastewater samples is an innovative approach that overcomesmany limitations of traditional surveys to identify and measure a range of chemicals that were consumed by or exposed to people living in a sewer catchment area. First conceptualised in 2001, much progress has been made to make wastewater analysis (WWA) a reliable and robust tool for measuring chemical consumption and/or exposure. At the moment, the most popular application of WWA, sometimes referred as sewage epidemiology, is to monitor the consumption of illicit drugs in communities around the globe, including China. The approach has been largely adopted by lawenforcement agencies as a device tomonitor the temporal and geographical patterns of drug consumption. In the future, themethodology can be extended to other chemicals including biomarkers of population health (e.g. environmental or oxidative stress biomarkers, lifestyle indicators or medications that are taken by different demographic groups) and pollutants that people are exposed to (e.g. polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, perfluorinated chemicals, and toxic pesticides). The extension of WWA to a huge range of chemicals may give rise to a field called sewage chemical-information mining (SCIM) with unexplored potentials. China has many densely populated cities with thousands of sewage treatment plants which are favourable for applying WWA/SCIM in order to help relevant authorities gather information about illicit drug consumption and population health status. However, there are some prerequisites and uncertainties of the methodology that should be addressed for SCIM to reach its full potential in China.     

Local governance of greenhouse gas emissions from air travel

Global greenhouse gas emissions from air travel (GHG-A) are on the rise, and projections point towards a rapid growth in the coming decades. This study aims to examine how local government (cities), addresses GHG-A in their Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAP). To fulfil this aim, over 200 SEAPs were analysed focusing on three issues: (1) Treatment of GHG-A in local emissions inventories; (2) Policy initiatives within this domain; and (3) The cities’ perceptions of the conflicts of interests. Results showed that more than half of the cities acknowledge the challenge of GHG-A, around one third include GHG-A in their emissions inventories, and more than one quarter have initiated policy interventions. To categorise these interventions, we have added a mode ‘governing by agenda setting’ to an existing analytical framework, ‘Modes of governing’. With their authority limited to the local setting, this mode of governing is a common channel for cities to push changes at higher levels.