Assessment of Soil Erodibility Indices for Conservation Reserve Program Lands in Southwestern Kansas Using Satellite Imagery and GIS Techniques

The soil erodibility index (EI) of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands, which was the major criterion for CRP enrollment, was assessed for six counties in southwestern Kansas using USGS seamless digital elevation model data and Geographical Informational System techniques. The proportion of land areas with EI values of 8 or lower was less than 1% of the entire study area and most of the land areas (72.5%) were concentrated on EI values between 8 and 24. Although land acreage with EI values of 24 or higher decreased dramatically, the proportion of CRP lands to the other land-use types did not change much from low to high EI levels. The soil EI and physical soil characteristics of the CRP lands were compared to those of other land-use types. In general, the mean EI values of the land-use types were strongly correlated with physical soil properties, including organic matter content, clay content, available water capacity, permeability, and texture. CRP lands were compared in detail with cropland in terms of their soil characteristics to infer the pivotal cause of the land transformation. Although there was no significant statistical difference in EI between cropland and CRP soils, soil texture, soil family, and permeability were statistically different between the two. Statistical analyses of these three variables showed that CRP soils had coarser texture and higher permeability on average than cropland soils, indicating that CRP lands in the study area are drier than cropland soils. Therefore, soil moisture characteristics, not necessarily soil erosion potential, might have been the key factor for CRP enrollment in the study area.     

城乡接合部居民楼火灾风险评价及防控对策研究

为了准确探究城乡接合部居民楼火灾事故致因机理,预防与控制城乡接合部日常生产与生活过程中引发火灾事故的有效途径,建立信息面更全、实际性更强的火灾风险评估模型是目前行之有效的手段。基于湖南省某地发生火灾事故的实际情况,根据事故树分析法,以城乡接合部居民楼火灾事故为顶事件构建事故树,计算得到事故树的最小割集、最小径集和结构重要度,研究城乡接合部居民楼火灾事故的发生模式、致因因素及影响程度,为改善城乡接合部居民楼火灾安全提供重要的理论依据,并提出相应的防控措施及对策。     

Ultrasound pretreatment of filamentous algal biomass for enhanced biogas production

The filamentous alga Hydrodictyon reticulatum harvested from a bench-scale wastewater treatment pond was used to evaluate biogas production after ultrasound pretreatment. The effects of ultrasound pretreatment at a range of 10–5000 J/mL were tested with harvested H. reticulatum. Cell disruption by ultrasound was successful and showed a higher degree of disintegration at a higher applied energy. The range of 10–5000 J/mL ultrasound was able to disintegrated H. reticulatum and the soluble COD was increased from 250 mg/L to 1000 mg/L at 2500 J/mL. The disintegrated algal biomass was digested for biogas production in batch experiments. Both cumulative gas generation and volatile solids reduction data were obtained during the digestion. Cell disintegration due to ultrasound pretreatment increased the specific biogas production and degradation rates. Using the ultrasound approach, the specific methane production at a dose of 40 J/mL increased up to 384 mL/g-VS fed that was 2.3 times higher than the untreated sample. For disintegrated samples, the volatile solids reduction was greater with increased energy input, and the degradation increased slightly to 67% at a dose of 50 J/mL. The results also indicate that disintegration of the algal cells is the essential step for efficient anaerobic digestion of algal biomass.     

大尺寸短波发射天线现场测试技术研究

三线、对数周期等大尺寸天线大量应用于通信台站与舰船上,然而,考虑到天线放置地点、工作频段、通信覆盖范围等要求,这类天线都具有较大的物理尺寸,在实验室环境和外场试验环境下都无法直接测量辐射方向图、发射效率、驻波比等天线性能指标。以大尺寸短波发射天线现场测试技术为研究对象,分析了大尺寸短波发射天线现场测手段的必要性与所存在的不足,在传统现场测试方法的基础上,提出了一种基于无人机的短波发射天线现场测试方法,对信台站与舰艇上大尺寸短波发射天线的设计、施工、调试、维修、以及现场系统联调等环节起到保障作用。     

Study on phosphorus loadings in ten natural and agricultural watersheds in subtropical region of China

Water eutrophication in subtropical regions of southern China threatens watershed health and is of major concern. However, annual phosphorus (P) loading and its dominant causes are still unclear, especially at the watershed scale. In this study, we investigated dynamic P loadings and associated factors (e.g., land use, livestock production, and runoff depth) in ten watersheds that varied in area from 9 to 5,212 ha in a hilly area of Hunan Province, China. A flowmeter was installed at the outlet of each watershed, and total P (TP) and soluble P (SP) concentrations were monitored periodically from June 2010 to October 2012. The results showed that annual P loadings (APLs) in the ten watersheds ranged from 22.8 to 247.8 kg P/km² and that P loss primarily occurred from April to June of each year during the main rainfall season in the study area. In addition, the average eutrophication (>0.05 mg P/L) ratio for stream waters was 86.7 % during the study period, which was indicative of a potentially serious condition for the local water environments. Annual P loadings were linearly related to livestock density (LD; R?=?0.92, p?<?0.01), whereas the eutrophication ratio of stream water was significantly (p?<?0.05) correlated with LD (R?=?0.61), percentage cropland (R?=?0.71), and percentage forest cover (R?=??0.68). Thus, it is concluded that the control of livestock production has the greatest potential for reducing P loadings in watersheds in this subtropical area. This will be beneficial to the amelioration and protection of local environment.     

含阶梯结构的高层楼梯井内烟气湍流及输运特征量的全局敏感性分析

高层建筑竖井火灾中影响因素众多,并且各因素对高层楼梯井火灾中重要现象、关键数值等的影响大小不一,使得此类火灾中的实验或理论研究成本较高。通过建立全局敏感性分析平台,定量考察了高层楼梯井结构所涉及因素的影响大小,并能够方便地筛选掉对所考察量影响较小的因素,以降低实验或计算成本。使用数值模拟方法,通过CFD软件对包含阶梯几何框架的高层楼梯井结构火灾进行了共计60次工况计算。并且根据计算结果,使用全局参数敏感性分析方法,得出建筑尺寸、热释放速率、环境参数对高层楼梯井内烟气湍流特性及输运特性的敏感性排序。结果表明,火源热释放速率对各输出参数的影响均占38%以上。     

Establishment of a comprehensive analysis method for the microfaunal movement in activated sludge

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Microfaunal identification and analysis are very complex; thus, an image analysis method was utilized in this paper to overcome the shortcomings of...     

Groundwater geochemical signatures and implication for sustainable development in a typical endorheic watershed on Tibetan plateau

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Groundwater resource is significantly important for sustainable development of the world, especially for arid endorheic watersheds. A total of 28...     

不同扰动下外源磷在形态磷间的分布规律

研究了3种扰动方式对外源磷在上覆水、间隙水、底泥中的数量分布的影响,并分析了内源磷形态间的转化过程.结果表明,与对照实验相比,物理扰动能促进上覆水中磷向底泥迁移,并高于生物扰动和组合扰动的促进作用,并且,三者均高于对照实验.这可归因于溶解氧的渗入.物理扰动能降低间隙水中DIP的平均含量,相比对照实验降低了12.13%(第6 d和第10 d平均值),但降低程度不如生物扰动(38.63%)和组合扰动(50.79%).3种扰动均能促进Fe/Al-P和Ca-P的形成,其中,物理扰动下Fe/Al-P和Ca-P平均形成量最大,物理扰动下AAP含量一直在减小,暗示物理扰动明显促进了AAP向闭蓄态的Fe/Al-P或者Ca-P转化.     

Ethanol mediated As(III) adsorption onto Zn-loaded pinecone biochar: Experimental investigation, modeling, and optimization using hybrid artificial neural network-genetic algorithm approach

Organic matters (OMs) and their oxidization products often influence the fate and transport of heavy metals in the subsurface aqueous systems through interaction with the mineral surfaces. This study investigates the ethanol (EtOH)-mediated As(III) adsorption onto Zn-loaded pinecone (PC) biochar through batch experiments conducted under Box–Behnken design. The effect of EtOH on As(III) adsorption mechanism was quantitatively elucidated by fitting the experimental data using artificial neural network and quadratic modeling approaches. The quadratic model could describe the limiting nature of EtOH and pH on As(III) adsorption, whereas neural network revealed the stronger influence of EtOH (64.5%) followed by pH (20.75%) and As(III) concentration (14.75%) on the adsorption phenomena. Besides, the interaction among process variables indicated that EtOH enhances As(III) adsorption over a pH range of 2 to 7, possibly due to facilitation of ligand–metal(Zn) binding complexation mechanism. Eventually, hybrid response surface model–genetic algorithm (RSM–GA) approach predicted a better optimal solution than RSM, i.e., the adsorptive removal of As(III) (10.47 μg/g) is facilitated at 30.22 mg C/L of EtOH with initial As(III) concentration of 196.77 μg/L at pH 5.8. The implication of this investigation might help in understanding the application of biochar for removal of various As(III) species in the presence of OM.