NABat: A top-down,bottom-up solution to collaborative continental-scale monitoring

Collaborative monitoring over broad scales and levels of ecological organization can inform conservation efforts necessary to address the contemporary biodiversity crisis. An important challenge to collaborative monitoring is motivating local engagement with enough buy-in from stakeholders while providing adequate top-down direction for scientific rigor, quality control, and coordination. Collaborative monitoring must reconcile this inherent tension between top-down control and bottom-up engagement. Highly mobile and cryptic taxa, such as bats, present a particularly acute challenge. Given their scale of movement, complex life histories, and rapidly expanding threats, understanding population trends of bats requires coordinated broad-scale collaborative monitoring. The North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) reconciles top-down, bottom-up tension with a hierarchical master sample survey design, integrated data analysis, dynamic data curation, regional monitoring hubs, and knowledge delivery through web-based infrastructure. NABat supports collaborative monitoring across spatial and organizational scales and the full annual lifecycle of bats.     

Transforming urban planning processes and outcomes through creative methods

Inclusively delivering the sustainable development goals (SDGs) remains challenging, particularly in urban areas, where some of the most pressing concerns exist. To achieve the transformative SDG agenda, new methods are required to overcome current deficits in engagement around inclusion and equitable outcomes. Evaluating against theories of governance and inclusion, we test a mixture of digital and physical creative methods abilities to deliver co-designed solutions that influence mobility and road safety planning outcomes in East African cities. Greater inclusion led to improved interactions of citizens with decision makers, and the identification of novel, practical solutions, delivering some elements of transformation. Risks include creative methods being used to co-opt communities to official agendas, and institutional planning norms needing to adapt to respond to a wider range of stakeholders. Overall, where risks are mitigated, we recommend that using Creative Methods could localise SDG delivery, ensuring more equitable and effective outcomes from infrastructure development investments.Supplementary InformationThe online version of this article (10.1007/s13280-020-01436-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Beyond ‘trees are good’: Disservices,management costs,and tradeoffs in urban forestry

The provision of ecosystem services is a prominent rationale for urban greening, and there is a prevailing mantra that ‘trees are good’. However, understanding how urban trees contribute to sustainability must also consider disservices. In this perspective article, we discuss recent research on ecosystem disservices of urban trees, including infrastructure conflicts, health and safety impacts, aesthetic issues, and environmentally detrimental consequences, as well as management costs related to ecological disturbances and risk management. We also discuss tradeoffs regarding species selection and local conservation concerns, as well as the central role of human perception in the interpretation of ecosystem services and disservices, particularly the uncritical assertion that ‘everybody loves trees’. Urban forestry decision-making that fails to account for disservices can have unintended negative consequences for communities. Further research is needed regarding life cycle assessments, stakeholder decision-making, return-on-investment, and framings of services and disservices in urban forestry.     

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.     

Pseudomonas sp. ZXY-1, a newly isolated and highly efficient atrazine-degrading bacterium, and optimization of biodegradation using response surface methodology

Atrazine, a widely used herbicide, is increasing the agricultural production effectively, while also causing great environmental concern. Efficient atrazine-degrading bacterium is necessary to removal atrazine rapidly to keep a safe environment. In the present study, a new atrazine-degrading strain ZXY-1, identified as Pseudomonas, was isolated. This new isolated strain has a strong ability to biodegrade atrazine with a high efficiency of 9.09 mg/L/hr.Temperature, p H, inoculum size and initial atrazine concentration were examined to further optimize the degradation of atrazine, and the synthetic effect of these factors were investigated by the response surface methodology. With a high quadratic polynomial mathematical model(R~2= 0.9821) being obtained, the highest biodegradation efficiency of 19.03 mg/L/hr was reached compared to previous reports under the optimal conditions(30.71°C, pH 7.14, 4.23%(V/V) inoculum size and 157.1 mg/L initial atrazine concentration).Overall, this study provided an efficient bacterium and approach that could be potentially useful for the bioremediation of wastewater containing atrazine.     

Sensitivity of Precipitation Statistics to Urban Growth in a Subtropical Coastal Megacity Cluster

This short paper presents an investigation on how human activities may or may not affect precipitation based on numerical simulations of precipitation in a benchmark case with modified lower boundary conditions, representing different stages of urban development in the model. The results indicate that certain degrees of urbanization affect the likelihood of heavy precipitation significantly, while less urbanized or smaller cities are much less prone to these effects. Such a result can be explained based on our previous work where the sensitivity of precipitation statistics to surface anthropogenic heat sources lies in the generation of buoyancy and turbulence in the planetary boundary layer and dissipation through triggering of convection. Thus only mega cities of sufficient size, and hence human-activity-related anthropogenic heat emission, can expect to experience such effects. In other words, as cities grow, their effects upon precipitation appear to grow as well.     

流体剪切与超声空化破解剩余污泥的参数优化

为提高剩余污泥的破解效果并降低能耗,采用FS（fluid shear,流体剪切）、UC（ultrasonic cavitation,超声空化）、FS和UC联合工艺（FS-UC,UC-FS）破解剩余污泥,并应用单因素试验结合响应面法对联合工艺进行优化.结果表明:FS对剩余污泥破解效果一般,只在开始阶段具有较好效果,随作用时间延长,破解效果未有显著提高甚至下降.UC对剩余污泥破解效果明显,随作用时间延长,破解效果显著提升,但能耗也随之增大,EDR（energy disintegration ratio,效能比）明显下降.相同作用时间下,UC破解效果优于FS破解效果,UC破解剩余污泥的DD_COD（degree of disintegration,破解率）与EDR均明显高于FS方法.单因素试验得出的较优FS作用时间范围为2~8 min,较优UC作用时间范围为5~15 min.响应面法试验结果显示,联合工艺的剩余污泥破解效果和能量利用率均优于单一方法,联合工艺中FS-UC工艺的破解效果优于UC-FS工艺.FS-UC工艺的最佳参数:FS处理5.6 min再UC处理15.0 min,该条件下剩余污泥实际DD_COD为50.8%,EDR为26.8%.UC-FS工艺的最佳参数:先UC作用15.0 min再FS作用7.8 min,该条件下剩余污泥实际DD_COD为36.5%,EDR为17.1%.研究显示,以DD_COD和EDR为指标,4种工艺的高效性顺序为FS-UC > UC-FS > UC > FS,其中FS-UC工艺具有能耗低、破解效率高的特点,是4种工艺中剩余污泥破解效果最好的一种工艺.      

小型城市污水排放量预测模型研究——以楚雄市为例

针对小城市污水排放量历史数据较少,城市发展变化较大的特点,以楚雄市为例,提出了基于污水排放来源以及生成机理的预测方法。根据历史人口增长趋势以及城镇化率进行城区人口综合预测,运用定额法根据不同行业用水特点预测城市用水量,结合城市污水排放特点对楚雄市近期以及远期城市污水排放量进行科学合理的预测,并对预测结果进行了分析,可为城市发展规划提供决策参考。     

蒲河水生态特征与修复对策研究

文章基于蒲河水生态功能三级分区建设目标,对蒲河流域水生态特征和受控因素进行了解析,探讨了具有北方地域特征河流的水生态修复对策和途径,总结了河道污染控制与水质改善实用技术的研发方向和应用的前景,为突破城市河流水生态修复的瓶颈问题提供了依据和技术支持。     

某城市污水处理厂二期污水处理工程设计研究

详细介绍了某城市第一污水处理厂在现有工程的基础上二期工程的工艺设计以及构筑物、设备参数;二期工程充分利用原有工程场地,本着现有、新建运行管理便捷统一原则,采用改良型A/A/O生化池作为二级处理主体工艺;二期工程投入运营后,某城市污水处理厂达到20×104 m3/d的污水设计规模.最终污水厂出水水质达到了《城镇污水处理厂污染物排放标准》(GB 18918-2002)一级 A排放标准.污水处理厂运营后,经济效益显著,可保本经营,并具有企业自我发展的能力.