An attempt to develop ecotourism in an unknown area: the case of Nehbandan County,South Khorasan Province,Iran

Environment, Development and Sustainability - This study is an attempt to develop ecotourism in Nehbandan County, in the South Khorasan Province, Iran, by representing unknown areas that have...     

Sustainable cropping pattern in North Iran: application of fuzzy goal programming

Due to the important role that the application of mathematical programming models have in determining optimal cropping patterns, this research presents a sustainable cropping pattern that considers selected economic, environmental, and social goals together. Using a random sampling method, a sample size of 168 farmers was selected in the Sari County, Iran. Our results showed that economic, self-sufficiency, environmental, and social goals have a distinctly different impact on cropping pattern performance. Compared to the current cropping pattern, the gross margins for economic and social goals increased by nearly 11 and 2 %, respectively, and the gross margins for self-sufficiency and environmental goals decreased by nearly 2 and 36 %. Interestingly, it has been found that the performance of the current cropping pattern has an average positive impact of 6 % if economic, self-sufficiency, environmental, and social (employment) goals are realized simultaneously.     

Hydraulics Near Unscreened Diversion Pipes in Open Channels: Large Flume Experiments

Most of the water diversions on the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers (California, United States) and their tributaries are currently unscreened. These unscreened diversions are commonly used for irrigation and are potentially harmful to migrating and resident fishes. A large flume (test section: 18.29 m long, 3.05 m wide and 3.20 m high) was used to investigate the hydraulic fields near an unscreened water diversion under ecologically and hydraulically relevant diversion rates and channel flow characteristics. We investigated all combinations of three diversion rates (0.28, 0.42, and 0.57 m³/s) and three sweeping velocities (0.15, 0.38, and 0.61 m/s), with one additional test at 0.71 m³/s and 0.15 m/s. We measured the three‐dimensional velocity field at seven cross sections near a diversion pipe and constructed regression equations of the observed maximum velocities near the pipe. Because the velocity components in three directions (longitudinal, transverse, and vertical) were significantly greater near the diversion pipe inlet compared with those farther from it, they cannot be neglected in the modeling and design of fish guidance and protection devices for diversion pipes. Our results should be of great value in quantifying the hydraulic fields that are formed around fish guidance devices to design more effective protection for fishes from entrainment into unscreened water‐diversion pipes.     

Effect on herbicide adsorption of organic forestry waste products used for soil remediation

Organic soil amendments can be useful for improving degraded soil, but this increase in organic matter (OM) may influence adsorption of herbicides subsequently applied to the treated soil, even though the particle size of amendments and their nature differ from typical soil OM. In this study, a batch equilibrium method was used to measure adsorption of five herbicides following application to two organic media, wood pulp and sawdust, comparing these with two cropping soils. Herbicide adsorption, quantified by distribution coefficients (k_d), was much higher in the two organic media than in the cropping soils. The increases in adsorption were strongly correlated to the percentage of organic carbon. When the k_d was normalized to adsorption coefficients corrected for OM content (k_oc), variation in results between the media was greatly reduced, indicating that OM is an important factor influencing adsorption in these media. The results of this study suggest that herbicides will be less effective when applied to soils in which sawdust and wood pulp have been added. Using organic amendments to remediate soil will increase adsorption of pesticides, reducing their bio-availability and efficacy, but also reducing their tendency to leach into root zones of deep-rooted crops and into groundwater.     

Fingerprinting and Groundwater Model Application to Evaluate Hydraulic Barrier Efficiency (Italy)

Remediation actions at contaminated sites are based on multiple numerical model scenarios considering different parameter distributions, source positions and contaminant transport paths. In some cases the excess of scenarios is due to uncertainties in the conceptual model as a result of the spread of contamination through heterogeneities in the physical system. Reduction of project hypotheses and conceptual model uncertainty is therefore needed. This result can be achieved by coupling hydrogeological investigations with environmental forensic techniques, better localization of the source and understanding of contamination history. In this respect, in the present study, compositional fingerprinting and groundwater flow modeling were applied to a former oil storage facility where, even though a hydraulic barrier had been built to stop the hydrocarbon plume, the presence of some hydrocarbons was still found in downgradient monitoring wells. The final aim was to evaluate the efficacy of the hydraulic barrier and identify of the source of pollution. Fingerprinting results indicated pollution with a gasoline-diesel mixture much altered by water washing and/or biodegradation. Comparison of seven groundwater samples collected in wells and monitoring wells was performed by analyzing the volatile fraction (BTEX) and the total ion chromatogram (TIC), focusing attention on: n-alkanes (m/z 85), alkylcyclohexanes (m/z 83), isoprenoids (m/z 113), C4-alkylbenzenes (m/z 134), C3-C6 alkylbenzenes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The most probable scenario was then identified by combining the results of fingerprinting with different contaminant paths obtained using the numerical model.     

ANN-based mapping of monthly reference crop evapotranspiration by using altitude, latitude and longitude data in Fars province, Iran

The main goal of this study was to evaluate the different feed-forward back-propagation artificial neural networks’ (ANNs) potential to estimate and interpolate the reference crop evapotranspiration (ET₀) in Fars province of Iran. ET₀ was calculated using the FAO-56 Penman–Monteith method over 24 synoptic stations. Then, altitude, latitude, longitude and the month’s number as inputs and the monthly ET₀ as output (target) were used to train the ANNs. In addition, the three-layered ANNs optimized with different training algorithms including gradient descent back-propagation (gd), gradient descent with adaptive learning rate back-propagation (gda), gradient descent with momentum and adaptive learning rate back-propagation (gdx) and scaled conjugate gradient back-propagation (scg). The results indicated that scg algorithm with architecture (4 2 1) had more satisfactory results with the RMSE and R correlation coefficient equal to 18.538 mm and 0.967 in validation phase, respectively. Based on the mentioned architecture of scg algorithm, and input data form different parts of Fars province and surrounding areas, monthly ET₀ maps were produced and annual one achieved by summation of monthly maps. The maps particularly annual one showed that highest values of ET₀ could be found in the southern and especially southeastern regions, while the lowest values of ET₀ could be seen in the northern parts. Contribution of geographic and topographic variables improved the accuracy and spatial details of the resulting maps. It is interesting to note that the fundamental capability of this model is the usage of just a few parameters for ET₀ mapping. Since ET₀ is a key parameter in water demand planning, therefore, the derived maps could be useful and applicable for many purposes mainly irrigation scheduling in Fars province, Iran.     

Comparison of understorey bird species in relation to edge–interior gradient in an isolated tropical rainforest of Malaysia

Forest fragmentation results in a loss of forest interior and an increase in edge habitat. As a result, these changes may affect the bird species distribution and composition. We studied how understorey bird community composition and habitat variables changed along an edge-to-interior gradient in a fragmented lowland rainforest in Peninsular Malaysia. Birds and environmental variables were recorded at each of the 93 sampling points distributed along the 14 parallel transects that were systematically placed across the gradient of distance from the forest edge to the forest interior. Species composition was different along the edge–interior gradient, although only a few species were strictly confined to either edge or interior habitat. Based on bird–habitat associations along the edge–interior gradient, some of these edge-preferred species occurred in high numbers at the matrix surrounding the patch. In contrast, the interior-specialist group, mainly terrestrial insectivores, avoided the forest edge and was positively associated with humidity, canopy cover, the number of dead trees, percentage of litter cover, and depth of the litter layer. Species endemic to the Sunda subregion were more abundant in the interior of the forest. From a conservation perspective, forest remnants in the lowlands of Peninsular Malaysia that have a deep leaf litter layer, dense canopy cover, high number of dead trees, and high relative humidity are able to support understorey bird species that are sensitive to edge effects. The forest has important conservation value even though it is fragmented and isolated.     

Effect of different biochars amendment on soil biological indicators in a calcareous soil

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Previous studies suggest that biochar has potential to benefit soil when used as an amendment, but only few studies have investigated how the...     

Should we Leave Nature Unattended or Assist through Enrichment to Foster Climate Change Mitigation? Exclosure Management in the Highlands of Ethiopia

Environmental Management - In order to foster the potential of exclosures to sequester carbon, it is understood that they are increasingly assisted through enrichment planting. To study the impact...     

The conceptual framework to determine interrelations and interactions for holistic Water,Energy, and Food Nexus

Environment, Development and Sustainability - Several models with a variety of concepts and approaches have been proposed to address different aspects of the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus system....