The Problems of Fishermen in the Southern Aral Sea Region

The main objective of this paper is the presentation of water scarcity and water quality problems of fishery and fishermen in the southern Aral Sea region Kazakhstan. We tried in the past to inform interested people about our suggestions how to rehabilitate the situation, how to produce relatively enough fish for the functioning of local fish processing industry and to give people jobs, but we were unable so far to convince decision makers about innovations needed. It is essential therefore to reiterate some of the well-known problems of the region, called the Aral Sea crisis, but we concentrate mostly on the problems for the fishermen. While we do this, we understand, however, that the problem requires solution within the concept of a socioeconomic sustainable development for which we suggest the development of a decision support system based upon a computer simulation model providing optimal solutions.     

城市污水处理厂Web决策支持中心的设计与开发

研究开发了基于Web的城市污水处理厂决策支持系统(模拟系统、专家系统、培训系统),实现了决策支持中心的思想。介绍了城市污水处理厂Web决策支持中心的设计思想,以及利用.NET技术,以单机版决策支持系统为基础进行软件开发的方法。同时讨论了开发城市污水处理厂决策支持中心的意义,以及在本研究基础上进行深入科研工作的前景。     

Monetary assessment of the recreational benefits of improved water quality – description of a new model and a case study

The European Union Water Framework Directive (WFD) has created a demand for comparing the benefits and costs of the remedial measures. A major part of the benefits from improved water quality relate to the increased recreational value. However, there is a lack of easily operative and widely applicable quantitative methods to assess the benefits of improved water quality for recreational use. We present a new model to link physical indicators of water quality, water feasibility indicators for different recreational uses, individuals’ perceptions concerning the current feasibility of water for recreational purposes and monetary measures of water-related recreation benefits. The model has been applied to nine lakes, three rivers and one large coastal area in Finland. In this paper, we present the principles of the method and the results from one case study. In Finland, the method has been applied for the economic analysis required in the WFD.     

An Open Source GIS‐Based Decision Support System for Watershed Evaluation of Best Management Practices

Economic costs, water quantity/quality benefits, and cost effectiveness of agricultural best management practices (BMPs) at a watershed scale are increasingly examined using integrated economic‐hydrologic models. However, these models are typically complex and not user‐friendly for examining the effects of various BMP scenarios. In this study, an open source geographic information system (GIS)‐based decision support system (DSS), named the watershed evaluation of BMPs (WEBs), was developed for creating BMP scenarios and simulating economic costs and water quantity/quality benefits at farm field, subbasin, and watershed scales. This DSS or WEBs interface integrated a farm economic model, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), and an optimization model within Whitebox Geospatial Analysis Tools (GAT), an open source GIS software. The DSS was applied to the 14.3‐km² Gully Creek watershed, a coastal watershed in southern Ontario, Canada that drains directly into Lake Huron. BMPs that were evaluated included conservation tillage, nutrient management, cover crop, and water and sediment control basins. In addition to assessing economic costs, water quantity/quality benefits, and cost effectiveness of BMPs, the DSS can be also used to examine prioritized BMP types/locations and corresponding economic and water quantity/quality tradeoffs in the study watershed based on environmental targets or budget constraints. Further developments of the DSS including interface transfer to other watersheds are also discussed. Editor's note : This paper is part of the featured series on SWAT Applications for Emerging Hydrologic and Water Quality Challenges. See the February 2017 issue for the introduction and background to the series.     

Modeling Summer Month Hydrological Drought Probabilities in the United States Using Antecedent Flow Conditions

Climate change raises concern that risks of hydrological drought may be increasing. We estimate hydrological drought probabilities for rivers and streams in the United States (U.S.) using maximum likelihood logistic regression (MLLR). Streamflow data from winter months are used to estimate the chance of hydrological drought during summer months. Daily streamflow data collected from 9,144 stream gages from January 1, 1884 through January 9, 2014 provide hydrological drought streamflow probabilities for July, August, and September as functions of streamflows during October, November, December, January, and February, estimating outcomes 5‐11 months ahead of their occurrence. Few drought prediction methods exploit temporal links among streamflows. We find MLLR modeling of drought streamflow probabilities exploits the explanatory power of temporally linked water flows. MLLR models with strong correct classification rates were produced for streams throughout the U.S. One ad hoc test of correct prediction rates of September 2013 hydrological droughts exceeded 90% correct classification. Some of the best‐performing models coincide with areas of high concern including the West, the Midwest, Texas, the Southeast, and the Mid‐Atlantic. Using hydrological drought MLLR probability estimates in a water management context can inform understanding of drought streamflow conditions, provide warning of future drought conditions, and aid water management decision making.     

负载型钙钛矿催化剂对VOCs的催化燃烧性能研究

以γ-Al2O3为载体,采用等体积浸渍法制备负载型钙钛矿La0.8Ce0.2 Mn0.8 Co0.2 O3/γ-Al2O3催化剂,详细考察了温度、空速、甲苯浓度、水蒸汽等因素对催化剂催化燃烧VOCs(甲苯)性能的影响.结果表明,甲苯的转化率随反应温度的提高而上升;空速越低、水蒸汽含量越少,同一反应温度下甲苯的转化率越高;随甲苯浓度的增大,处理效果表现出先略有提高后降低的趋势;该催化剂随反应时间的增加始终保持了较高的甲苯去除率,稳定性良好.     

黑龙江省饮用水水源地技术保障体系研究

根据黑龙江省水资源和水源地概况,提出了体系构成原则,建立了饮用水水源地技术保障体系。研究成果可为黑龙江省饮用水水源地环境保护工作的开展提供技术支撑。     

Streamflow Forecasting Using Singular Value Decomposition and Support Vector Machine for the Upper Rio Grande River Basin

The current study improves streamflow forecast lead‐time by coupling climate information in a data‐driven modeling framework. The spatial–temporal correlation between streamflow and oceanic–atmospheric variability represented by sea surface temperature (SST), 500‐mbar geopotential height (Z₅₀₀), 500‐mbar specific humidity (SH₅₀₀), and 500‐mbar east–west wind (U₅₀₀) of the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean is obtained through singular value decomposition (SVD). SVD significant regions are weighted using a nonparametric method and utilized as input in a support vector machine (SVM) framework. The Upper Rio Grande River Basin (URGRB) is selected to test the applicability of the proposed model for the period of 1965–2014. The April–August streamflow volume is forecasted using previous year climate variability, creating a lagged relationship of 1–13 months. SVD results showed the streamflow variability was better explained by SST and U₅₀₀ as compared to Z₅₀₀ and SH₅₀₀. The SVM model showed satisfactory forecasting ability with best results achieved using a one‐month lead to forecast the following four‐month period. Overall, the SVM results showed excellent predictive ability with average correlation coefficient of 0.89 and Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency of 0.79. This study contributes toward identifying new SVD significant regions and improving streamflow forecast lead‐time of the URGRB.     

科技支撑美丽中国建设的进展和展望

自党的十八大提出美丽中国建设目标以来,为发挥好科技支撑作用,国家组织开展了一系列关于资源、生态和环境等领域的科技计划,有效支撑了美丽中国建设的理论探索、生态环境保护修复和生态文明体制建设决策支持等方面的科技需求。本文在梳理过去十年国际及发达国家生态环境领域科技研发布局情况,以及我国相关领域科技研发计划和推进情况的基础上,重点介绍了中国科学院“美丽中国生态文明建设科技工程”战略性先导科技专项（A类）的主要研发内容及取得的阶段进展,并基于现状与期望分析,辨识有关领域科技前沿动态与发展趋势,提出关于下一步科技发展方向的建议,以期为党的二十大之后科技推进美丽中国建设的方向提供参考。     

Combining theory and wisdom in pragmatic,scenario-based decision support for sustainable development

Researchers have increasingly acknowledged the relative strength of ‘hybrid’ approaches to scenario analysis for exploring the futures of coupled human-nature systems. In this paper, we explain, demonstrate, and provisionally evaluate the usefulness of a simple analytical framework, based on five categories of capital assets, as part of a protocol for overcoming the conversion problem in hybrid scenario analysis. Based on a preliminary application of the framework to a case study in South Africa, we suggest that the five capitals framework has the potential to improve expedience and counter the bias against ‘soft’ drivers in hybrid approaches to scenario analysis. However, in light of the methodological trade-off between rigour and expedience, we suggest that future research needs to compare the available protocols for hybrid scenario analysis by weighing up the relative gain in scenario quality versus the relative cost of scenario construction.