Soil Lead and Other Metal Levels in Industrial, Residential and Nature Reserve Areas in Singapore

The use of pressure feedback microwave digestion technique has permitted rapid and efficient digestion of soil and sediment samples. The evaluation of different acid mixtures to digest soil samples were studied by mixed-level orthogonal array design. The selected acid mixture of HCl-HNO3-HF was employed in the survey of Pb, Zn, Cu, Cr and Mn in soil samples. Surface soil samples were collected from industrial, residential and nature reserve areas in Singapore. The five metal concentrations were determined by flame atomic absorption spectrometry and graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. The lead and other metal contents in NBS SRM 1645, NIES CRM No. 2 and NRCC BCSS-1 sediment standard references were determined concurrently with the survey samples. Five measured metal loading on the surface soils was in the order: industrial area > residential area > nature reserve area. The trace metal concentrations in surface soil from areas of heavy traffic are higher than those from residential areas. The main sources of trace metal pollution are vehicular exhaust and industrial activities.     

Adsorption characteristics of a phenoxy acetic acid herbicide on activated carbon

The adsorption of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) by two powdered coal activated carbons was studied in aqueous solution. The modelling of the adsorption equilibrium showed that the adsorption of 2,4-D fitted a Langmuir isotherm. Adsorption was influenced by the activated carbon type, adsorbent concentration and solution characteristics. The adsorption was found to decrease with an increase in pH over the range 1.5-9. Maximum adsorption occurred at pH approximately 2.5, which corresponds to the 2,4-D pKa value. The amount of 2,4-D adsorbed was also found to depend on the NaCl concentration.     

Performance evaluation of a sorbent tube sampling method using short path thermal desorption for volatile organic compounds

Air sampling, using sorbents, thermal desorption and gas chromatography, is a versatile method for identifying and quantifying trace levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Thermal desorption can provide high sensitivity, appropropriate choices of sorbents and method parameters can accommodate a wide range of compounds and high humidity, and automated short-path systems can minimize artifacts, losses and carry-over effects. This study evaluates the performance of a short-path thermal desorption method for 77 VOCs using laboratory and field tests and a dual sorbent system (Tenax GR, Carbosieve SIII). Laboratory tests showed that the method requirements for ambient air sampling were easily achieved for most compounds, e.g., using the average and standard deviation across target compounds, blank emissions were < or = 0.3 ng per sorbent tube for all target compounds except benzene, toluene and phenol; the method detection limit was 0.05 +/- 0.08 ppb, reproducibility was 12 +/- 6%, linearity, as the relative standard deviation of relative response factors, was 16 +/- 9%, desorption efficiency was 99 +/- 28%, samples stored for 1-6 weeks had recoveries of 87 +/- 9%, and high humidity samples had recoveries of 102 +/- 12%. Due to sorbent, column and detector characteristics, performance was somewhat poorer for phenol groups, ketones, and nitrogen containing compounds. The laboratory results were confirmed in an analysis of replicate samples collected in two field studies that sampled ambient air along roadways and indoor air in a large office building. Replicates collected under field conditions demonstrated good agreement except for very low concentrations or large (> 41 volume) samples of high humidity air. Overall, the method provides excellent performance and satisfactory throughput for many applications.     

Heavy metals in the SPM of air in the environment surrounding a ferro-alloy industrial plant in India

Prices for ferro-alloys have hardened due to the closure of plants in developed countries on account of increasingly stringent pollution control legislation, resulting in a higher cost of production. A ferro-alloy industry with a capacity of 80000 MT per annum was selected to study the nature of pollution. Because of the objectionable nature of polluting air in and around the plant it was located in a rural area where there was no other industry. The area was agriculturally active and there was no effective control system for this plant.The quality of ambient air around the plant site is discussed in this paper along with the meteorological conditions. The maximum concentration of suspended particulate matter (SPM) was 768 µg/NM³ downwind of the plant, minimum 184 µg/NM³, and the average was more than 446 µg/NM³. The presence of heavy metals, viz. Fe, Mn, Cr and Pb, was also assessed. The concentration of Fe was 50 µg/NM³ downwind and 10 µg/NM³ upwind. The concentration of other metals followed a similar trend.     

Assessing land use impacts on flood processes in complex terrain by using GIS and modeling approach

A distributed hydrologic modeling and GIS approach is applied for the assessment of land use impact in the Steinsel sub-basin, Alzette, Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg. The assessment focuses on the runoff contributions from different land use classes and the potential impact of land use changes on runoff generation. The results show that the direct runoff from urban areas is dominant for a flood event compared with runoff from other land use areas in this catchment, and tends to increase for small floods and for the dry season floods, whereas the interflow from forested, pasture and agricultural field areas contributes to the recession flow. Significant variations in flood volume, peak discharge, time to the peak, etc., are found from the model simulation based on the three hypothetical land use change scenarios.     

Flue gas treatability studies: a tool for techno-economic control of industrial air pollution

Air pollution problems in developing countries have gained larger fraction in the last decade especially due to non functioning and non implementation of effective air pollutioncontrol devices in industries. In industrial wastewater management, adequate treatability studies are conducted to arrive at a techno-economic treatment option. However no suchstudies were done for reducing air pollution or emission fromindustries until now in India. Little information was availableabout such studies in other countries. This article provides information about a novel technique known asflue gas treatability studies and to undertake such studies, a pilot scale system is installed in Air Pollution Control Divisionof M/s National Environmental Engineering research Institute, NEERI, Nagpur-20, India. This study is a tool for techno-economicselection of air pollution control systems specially for small/medium scale industrial emissions.     

Pool of Dust Particles over the Asian Continent: Balloon-borne Optical Particle Counter and Ground-based Lidar Measurements at Dunhuang, China

Measurements of aerosols were made in 2001 and 2002 at Dunhuang (40 degrees 00'N, 94 degrees 30'E), China to understand the nature of atmospheric particles over the desert areas in the Asian continent. Balloon-borne measurements with an optical particle counter suggested that particle size and concentration had noticeable peaks in super micron size range not only in the boundary mixing layer but also in the free troposphere. Super-micron particle concentration largely decreased in the mid tropopause (from 5 to 10 km; above sea level, a.s.l.). Lidar measurements made during August 2002 at Dunhuang suggested the possibility that mixing of dust particles occurred from near the ground to about 6 km even under calm weather conditions, and a large depolarization ratio of particulate matter was found in the aerosol layer. The top of the aerosol layer was found at heights of nearly 6 km (a.s.l.). It is strongly suggested that nonspherical dust particles (Kosa particles) frequently diffused in the free atmosphere over the Taklamakan desert through small-scale turbulences and are possible sources of dust particles of weak Kosa events that have been identified in the free troposphere not only in spring but also in summer over Japanese archipelago. Electron microscopic experiments of the particles collected in the free troposphere confirmed that coarse and nonspherical particles observed by the mineral particle were major components of coarse mode (diameter larger than 1 microm) below about 5 km over Dunhuang, China.     

Land use as a mitigation strategy for the water-quality impacts of global warming: a scenario analysis on two watersheds in the Ohio River Basin

This study uses an integrative approach to study the water-quality impacts of future global climate and land-use changes. In this study, changing land-use types was used as a mitigation strategy to reduce the adverse impacts of global climate change on water resources. The climate scenarios were based on projections made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the United Kingdom Hadley Centre's climate model (HadCM2). The Thornthwaite water-balance model was coupled with a land-use model (L-THIA) to investigate the hydrologic effects of future climate and land-use changes in the Ohio River Basin. The land-use model is based on the Soil Conservation Service's curve-number method. It uses the curve number, an index of land use and soil type, to calculate runoff volume and depth. The ArcView programming language, Avenue, was used to integrate the two models into a geographic information system (GIS). An output of the water-balance model, daily precipitation values adjusted for potential evapotranspiration, served as one of the inputs into the land-use model. Two watersheds were used in the present study: one containing the city of Cincinnati on the main stem of the Ohio River, and one containing the city of Columbus on a tributary of the Ohio River. These cities represent two major metropolitan areas in the Ohio River Basin with different land uses experiencing different rates of population growth. The projected hypothetical land-use changes were based on linear extrapolations of current population data. Results of the analyses indicate that conversion from agricultural land use to low-density residential land use may decrease the amount of surface runoff. The land-use practices which generate the least amount of runoff are forest, low-density residential, and agriculture; whereas high-density residential and commercial land-use types produce the highest runoff. The hydrologic soil type present was also an important factor in determining the amount of runoff and non-point-source pollution. A runoff-depth matrix and total nitrogen matrix were created for Cincinnati and Columbus to describe possible land-use mitigation measures in response to global climate change. The differences in Cincinnati and Columbus were due to differences in geographic location, air temperature, and total runoff. The results of this study may be useful to planners and policy makers for defining the possible impacts of future global climate and land-use changes on water resources.     

建筑物地基安全性监测

建筑物地基安全性监测是及时掌握建筑在施工和最初使用阶段地基是否出现异常变形的重要方法。本文根据大量工程监测实践，分析了建筑物地基安全性异常的表现形式及产生原因，总结了建筑物安全性监测应注意的几个问题。