Benchmarking for best practice environmental management

Benchmarking of environmental performance to demonstrate theachievement of best practice environmental management is acomponent of a new form of licensing of industrialdischarges in Western Australia. The paper describes theapproaches to benchmarking for the critical environmentalissues for an alumina refinery and wastewater treatmentplant. It also describes the lessons learnt from thebenchmarking process on appropriate methods, the benefitsand difficulties in the benchmarking process, and changesthat would assist benchmarking for best practiceenvironmental management.     

Determination of organophosphorus pesticides and related compounds in water samples by membrane extraction and gas chromatography

A membrane extraction-gas chromatography method was developed fordetermination of organophosphorus pesticides and related compounds including methamidophos, DDVP, dimethoate, methyl parathion, parathion, thiophosphoric acid trimethyl ester, and thiophosphoramidic acid dimethyl ester in water samples. In thismethod, surface-modified acetic cellulose membranes were used to extract the target analytes in water samples, the extracted analytes were back-extracted into a small amount of methanol, andgas chromatography with pulsed flame photometric detector (GC-PFPD) was used to determine the concentrations of targetanalytes in the extracts. The recoveries obtained for thetarget analytes spiked into the water samples ranged from 66to 94%. The method detection limit for each target analyte was 0.05 g L^-1. The method developed in this study had shown the advantages of being cheap, simple, fast, and reliable. It had been used successfully to determine the concentrations of target analytes in river water samples.     

地表水样品自然沉降时间对总磷测定结果的影响分析

地表水中总磷含量高低是评定水质优劣的一项重要指标,分析数据表明丰水期中总磷主要来源于泥沙中吸附的有机磷和无机磷,而溶解态磷含量较少;水样中总磷含量随着自然沉降时间的延长而逐渐降低.因此样品采集回来后样品的自然沉降时间是影响地表水中总磷测定结果的一个主要原因之一.     

一次监测值用于水质评价的研究

以2003年长江和淮河水系为例,通过计算各个评价项目的单月监测值分别与季均值和年均值的相对误差及其分布,以及水质类别相同的断面比例,认为对于旬报、月报短期水质评价,采用一次监测的数据评价水质是可靠的;对于季报和年报中、长期水质评价,采用一次监测数据评价的可靠程度较差,应采用2次或2次以上的监测数据平均值进行评价。     

环境监测业务管理系统的设计与开发

以郑州市环境监测中心站监测业务流程为例,从技术路线、系统结构设计、系统功能分析和技术实现等方面分析并介绍了环境监测业务管理系统的特点和开发时需解决的技术问题。探讨了建立基于B/S结构、J2EE技术架构、创新的组件装配方式、Oracle9i数据库、中间件和多层体系结构等多项先进技术进行系统实现的设计方案。     

地表水环境质量定性评价

针对目前缺乏统一的地表水环境质量定性评价准则的现状,根据我国主要水体的污染程度,提出了断面、河流、水系水质定性评价方法。     

Selecting Socio-Economic Metrics for Watershed Management

The selection of social and economic metrics to document baseline conditions and analyze the dynamic relationships between ecosystems and human communities are important decisions for scientists, managers, and watershed citizens. A large variety of social and economic data is available but these have limited use without theoretical frameworks. In this paper, several frameworks for reviewing social-ecosystem relations are offered, namely social sanctions, sense of place, civic structure, and cultural differences. Underlying all of these frameworks are attitudes, beliefs, values, and norms that affect which questions are asked and which indicators are chosen. Much work and significant challenges remain in developing a standard set of spatially based socio-economic metrics for watershed management.     

Extractive Spectrofluorometric Determination of Quinalphos Using Fluorescein in Environmental Samples

A simple, sensitive, convenient and low cost spectrofluorometric technique for determination of quinalphos is described. Quinalphos is decomposed with sodium ethoxide. Resultant sodium diethyl thiophosphate (Na-DETP) is extracted with a cationic fluorescein as ion pair complex into 1-chloro-2-nitrobenzene. The fluorescence of the ion pair, fluorescein-DETP is measured at 530 nm after excitation at 490 nm. This technique is applicable for the determination of quinalphos in water, food grains and vegetable samples up to ng level with Amberlite XAD-4.     

Linking Land Cover and Water Quality in New York City’S Water Supply Watersheds

The Catskill/Delaware reservoirs supply 90% of New York City’s drinking water. The City has implemented a series of watershed protection measures, including land acquisition, aimed at preserving water quality in the Catskill/Delaware watersheds. The objective of this study was to examine how relationships between landscape and surface water measurements change between years. Thirty-two drainage areas delineated from surface water sample points (total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and fecal coliform bacteria concentrations) were used in step-wise regression analyses to test landscape and surface-water quality relationships. Two measurements of land use, percent agriculture and percent urban development, were positively related to water quality and consistently present in all regression models. Together these two land uses explained 25 to 75% of the regression model variation. However, the contribution of agriculture to water quality condition showed a decreasing trend with time as overall agricultural land cover decreased. Results from this study demonstrate that relationships between land cover and surface water concentrations of total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and fecal coliform bacteria counts over a large area can be evaluated using a relatively simple geographic information system method. Land managers may find this method useful for targeting resources in relation to a particular water quality concern, focusing best management efforts, and maximizing benefits to water quality with minimal costs.The United States Environmental Protection Agency through its Office of Research and Development funded and managed the research described here. It has been subjected to Agency’s administrative review and approved for publication as an EPA document.