Simulation based programming for optimization of large-scale rainwater harvesting system: Malaysia case study

Large scale rainwater harvesting (LSRWH) is a promising alternative to address security and flood issues in urban areas. The development and planning of a LSRWH for an eco-community involves comprehensive site-planning, systems planning and design, which includes the rainwater source collection (roof) to the storage tank, the distribution and allocation system. This paper describes a new technique for designing a LSRWH for a community of 200 houses with an average of 4 persons per house and an average total daily water demand of 160 m³. It was found that the optimal size storage tank for a 20,000 m² roof area is 160 m³ with a 60% reliability. The application of this model to the case study revealed a significant water saving up to 58% .The total cost for this system is 443,861 USD over a life-span of 25 years.     

The impact of climate change on the benefit of a rain barrel sharing network

The assessment of the impact of climate change depends not only on quantitative changes in precipitation but also system characteristics that can be changed and enhanced. This study investigated the effect of building the shared network of a rainwater harvesting system as an adaptation to climate change scenarios. The performance of a rain barrel network under three climate change scenarios and three global circulation models (GCM) is examined. A sample community composed of four prospective users with individual storage is tested with various forms of shared connections. Most importantly, the results show that the benefit from shared rain barrels greatly increases under the climate change conditions compared with the historical rainfall data. Especially, for high reliabilities, the results indicate that the benefit of a rain barrel network increases under future climate change scenarios, whereas it does not show apparent improvement for low reliabilities. However, the performance of a rain barrel network is highly dependent on location and climate change scenarios. In contrast, the GCM does not considerably affect the performance of the shared network. The results of this study highlight the needs to establish sharing networks of rainwater harvesting systems under the climate change conditions, which would significantly increase the benefit of the entire community.     

秸秆收贮利用体系建设的困境与政策建议

我国拥有丰富的秸秆资源,但秸秆资源的利用效率很低,主要原因是秸秆收贮利用体系建设严重滞后。加强秸秆收贮利用体系建设,应强化政府对秸秆收贮利用体系建设的规范和引导,整合秸秆收贮利用各环节的相关资源,并拓宽秸秆利用企业的融资渠道。     

我国土壤环境修复咨询服务业发展研究

2019年是《中华人民共和国土壤污染防治法》实施的第一年,2020年我国迎来了《土壤污染防治行动计划》的大考,“十三五”期间我国土壤环境修复产业市场规模接近6900亿元,下达中央土壤污染防治专项资金259.13亿元,主要用于示范性农田和工业场地修复、全国土壤环境调查以及土壤污染防治先行区建设等,资金整体落实情况较好。土壤环境修复产业是支撑我国土壤污染防治目标指标和各项任务完成的重要支撑和物质保障,产业发展状况和水平直接决定了目标和任务的完成水平。本文基于土壤环境修复政策指南和招投标数据库,从政策、市场、队伍、项目、模式、问题、展望等方面系统分析了2019年我国土壤环境修复咨询服务业发展状况、水平与特点,提出了修复咨询服务业发展中存在的主要问题,对未来发展趋势进行了预测分析,以期为全面了解我国土壤环境修复咨询服务市场、开展土壤环境管理和社会投资提供参考。     

Holistic correlation of world’s largest social safety net and its outcomes with Sustainable Development Goals

The five largest social safety net (SSN) programmes in the world are being implemented in India, China and Brazil. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is one of these programmes and regarded as the world’s largest SSN. MGNREGA aims at enhancing livelihood security of households in rural India by providing guaranteed wage employment. The scheme has resulted in the creation of sustainable assets that promote the economic and infrastructure development. More than 33 million assets were built in the process of MGNREGA. These assets were spread out in 262,380 smallest units of administration covering 6887 sub-districts with the participation of more than 250 million human manpower. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) aims to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. The 17 goals tackle the root cause of poverty and attempts to make a positive change for both people and planet. Ecological regeneration or rejuvenation during the development of the assets generated numerous tangible and intangible benefits to the community in a sustainable way. MGNREGA, a federal government-sponsored scheme, using a decentralized approach is directly or indirectly helping to achieve all the 17 goals of sustainable development in India. This article takes a holistic approach to correlate and map the concepts and outcomes of MGNREGA programme with SDG. This article emphasises the fact that community-based participation in the planning and development activities at the regional levels will yield benefits to the biosphere, society and economy at the national level.     

深圳大气湿沉降对典型屋面径流水质的影响

屋面雨水是一种重要的非常规水源,其水质受大气湿沉降影响。该研究以深圳大学城水泥砂浆材质的屋面为例,测定了2011年14场降雨的雨前大气环境质量、大气降水水质和屋面径流水质,对比了大气降水及屋面径流中组分浓度的差异,分析了湿沉降与屋面径流污染负荷的关系及其影响因素。结果表明:(1)湿沉降中NH4+、乙酸、甲酸和乙二酸等组分与屋面材料及累积物发生化学反应,使得这些组分在屋面径流中的负荷显著减少;(2)湿沉降是屋面径流中Na+、K+、Mg2+、Ca2+和SO42-组分负荷的少部分来源;(3)而湿沉降是屋面径流中TOC、F-和NO3-组分负荷的主要来源;(4)雨前大气环境质量对湿沉降组分浓度有显著影响。因此,湿沉降对屋面径流组分负荷影响显著,城市屋面径流水质管理中应充分考虑湿沉降的影响。     

Regional water flows – Assessing opportunities for sustainable management

Sustainable water management may strongly benefit from an integrated approach. Additionally, an integrated urban water management policy considering the various urban water flows and the possible interactions between the water sector and the remaining urban activities can benefit if based on an urban metabolism based analysis. This article assesses water flows of Lisbon Metropolitan Area considering the conventional water supply system and wastewater treatment system flows and also the hydrological cycle flows, and proposes a global set of indicators to perform a benchmarking analysis of the 18 municipalities of the region. Results highlighted the heterogeneous nature of the Metropolitan area in terms of water management – either in terms of management entities (predominantly public or municipalized), water consumption (varying from 227.4 l/hab.day in Palmela to 402.7 l/hab.day in Seixal), wastewater treatment (10 out of 18 municipalities already undergo secondary or tertiary wastewater treatments), runoff indices (depending on the municipality's level of urbanization), among other. Through the output volumes it was also assessed the potential of the municipalities to reuse wastewater for potable or non-potable urban uses, as well as the potential to harvest and harness rainwater. The main constraints to an integrated water management were identified and some potential solutions were measured and proposed even though they need further assessment, particularly in a cost-benefit perspective.     

Evaluation of alternative water sources for commercial buildings: A case study in Brisbane,Australia

Commercial buildings are central to cities and contribute significantly to the urban demand for natural resources, including freshwater. Green building benchmarking tools include more efficient water use as key indicator of sustainability. This paper explores options for substituting mains drinking water with an alternative, non-potable water source on a fit for purpose basis. The research findings are based on a monitoring study of a commercial building in Brisbane, Australia that is harvesting rainwater for meeting non-potable water demand. The results demonstrated that the system is only achieving moderate reliability in meeting demand due to operational problems. The case study analysis has highlighted the need to include validation and monitoring to ensure the system is operating as per design intent. The paper also investigates the potential of other local, non-potable water sources for high-rise commercial buildings, in particular air conditioning condensate and groundwater inflow to a basement wet well. The paper concludes by comparing the advantages and disadvantages of different local water sources which highlights the need to undertake a site specific investigation to identify a suitable alternative water source, which considers O&M complexity and the capacity of facilities management.     

ICNIRP限制电磁场暴露的导则(100kHz~300GHz)解读

ICNIRP于2020年3月出版了2020年版《限制电磁场暴露的导则(100 kHz~300 GHz)》,为了准确掌握2020版导则在基本限值和导出限值方面与旧版导则的差异,通过对比新旧导则对应条款得到具体变化情况。2020版导则修订了全身暴露基本限值与导出限值、局部暴露基本限值、神经刺激基本限值、肢体感应电流导出限值,增加了局部暴露导出限值、短暂局部暴露基本限值与导出限值,删除了微波听觉效应基本限值、接触电流导出限值。2020版导则更新了限制射频电磁场暴露的科学基础,使限值更加匹配近年来的科学研究成果,提升了导则的科学性、严谨性和准确性。     

Rainfall conditions and rainwater harvesting potential in the urban area of Khartoum

Runoff water management is among the inherent challenges which face the sustainability of the development of arid urban centers. These areas are particularly at risk from flooding due to rainfall concentration in few heavy showers. On the other hand, they are susceptible to drought. The capital of Sudan (Khartoum) stands as exemplary for these issues. Hence, this research study aims at investigating the potential of applying rainwater harvesting (RWH) in Khartoum City Center as a potential urban runoff management tool. Rapid urbanization coupled with the extension of impervious surfaces has intensified the heat island in Khartoum. Consequently, increased frequency of heat waves and dust storms during the dry summer and streets flooding during the rainy season have led to environmental, economical, and health problems. The study starts with exposing the rainfall behavior in Khartoum by investigating rainfall variability, number of raindays, distribution of rain over the season, probability of daily rainfall, maximum daily rainfall and deficit/surplus of rain through time. The daily rainfall data show that very strong falls of >30 mm occur almost once every wet season. Decreased intra- and inter-annual rainfall surpluses as well as increased rainfall concentration in the month of August have been taking place. The 30-year rainfall variability is calculated at decade interval since 1941. Increasing variability is revealed with 1981–2010 having coefficients of variation of 66.6% for the annual values and 108.8–118.0% for the wettest months (July–September). Under the aforementioned rainfall conditions, this paper then explores the potential of RWH in Khartoum City Center as an option for storm water management since the drainage system covers only 40% of the study area. The potential runoff from the 6.5 km² center area is computed using the United States Natural Resources Conservation Services method (US-NRCS), where a weighted Curve Number (CN) of 94% is found, confirming dominant imperviousness. Rainfall threshold for runoff generation is found to be 3.3 mm. A 24,000 m³ runoff generated from a 13.1 mm rainfall (with 80% probability and one year return period) equals the drainage system capacity. An extreme rainfall of 30 mm produces a runoff equivalent to fourfold the drainage capacity. It is suggested that the former and latter volumes mentioned above could be harvested by applying the rational method from 18% and 80% rooftops of the commercial and business district area, respectively. Based on the above results, six potential sites can be chosen for RWH with a total roof catchment area of 39,558 m² and potential rooftop RWH per unit area of 0.033 m³. These results reflect the RWH potential for effective urban runoff management and better water resources utilization. RWH would provide an alternative source of water to tackle the drought phenomenon.