The potential for improvements in energy efficiency and CO2 emissions in the EU27 cement industry and the relationship with the capital budgeting decision criteria

This paper performs a cost-effectiveness analysis of some of the best available technologies (BAT) that can contribute to decreasing the energy consumption and CO₂ emissions in the European Union’s (EU27) cement industry. Several capital budgeting decision criteria have been used (the payback period, the net present value and the internal rate of return) to study whether or not an investment should be considered worthwhile. The results show that, independent of the capital budgeting decision criteria used, the number of cost-effective retrofitting possibilities available is large compared to the rate of improvements that the industry undertakes annually. This shows the insensitivity of the industry to financial criteria when it comes to making their investment decisions. The possible thermal energy improvement in the clinker production, if all these BATs were implemented, has been quantified to be around 10%. This achievement would place the cement industry in the upper bound of the benchmark range for clinker manufacture. However considering the delays observed nowadays in terms of diffusion of BATs in the cement industry, it requires a conducive policy environment that combines support for both technology development and to their deployment.     

基于回归支持向量机的指标规范值的水质评价模型

传统的回归支持向量机的水质评价模型不具有普适性和通用性,当指标较多时,模型的学习效率和求解精度均会受到影响.若适当设定3类水体(地表水、地下水和富营养化水体)各项指标的参照值及指标值的规范变换式,使不同指标的同级标准的规范值差异不大,从而可以认为用规范值表示的不同指标皆“等效”于某个规范指标.因此,可建立用规范值表示的任意m项指标组合皆适用的水质评价的回归支持向量机模型.通过实例对模型的实用性进行了效果检验,结果表明:用基于回归支持向量机的指标规范值的水质评价模型对河桥地表水、黑龙洞泉域地下水和山仔水库富营养化水体的水质评价结果与用BP神经网络评价法、模糊综合评价法和属性识别评价法的评价结果基本一致.     

基于决策树的城市黑臭水体遥感分级

水体黑臭程度遥感监测是了解城市水质现状和综合评价城市水环境治理效果的重要手段.以南京、常州、无锡和扬州为研究区,共采集171个样点,同步测量水质参数和光学参数,分析黑臭水体与一般水体的水色和光学特征,构建决策树模型进行重度黑臭水体、轻度黑臭水体和非黑臭水体（记为一般水体）识别.结果表明：①根据色度可将水体分为1~6类水体,其中,类型1~4为黑臭水体,分别为灰黑色、深灰色、灰色和浅灰色水体,类型5和类型6水体为一般水体,分别为绿色系和黄色系水体;②类型1水体的非色素颗粒物和有色可溶性有机物含量高,但色素颗粒物的吸收并不占主导,类型2和5水体的吸收以色素颗粒物吸收占主导,类型3、4和6水体的吸收以非色素颗粒物吸收占主导;③根据六类水体的反射光谱差异用黑臭水体差值指数（difference of black-odorous water index,DBWI）、三波段面积水体指数（green-red-nir area water index,G-R-NIR AWI）、绿光波段反射率和归一化黑臭水体指数（normalized difference black-odorous water index,NDBWI）构建的水体分类识别决策树,能够有效识别出重、轻度黑臭水体和一般水体;④将决策树模型应用于2019年4月9日扬州的PlanetScope影像上,并利用10个同步过境点进行验证,整体识别精度达到80.00%,K值达到0.67.通过水色分类后的城市水体分级模型方法,可推广应用于类似的水体,为黑臭水体监管提供技术方法.     

水源型流域污染系统控制科技支撑战略

创新水源型流域污染系统控制科技支撑战略,对我国流域水环境综合治理与管理具有前瞻意义.文章从引导科技支撑发展方向,发展多维流域认知系统,创立流域系统控制知识,创新水源流域环境技术,建立流域水环境经济学与完善流域环境管理体系六个方面构建了水源流域污染系统控制的科技支撑战略体系;从制定水源型流域环境区划、水源型流域安全发展规划、水源型流域环境保护规划与水源型流域保护工程规划四个方面提出了水源型流域污染系统控制科技支撑的战略行动;从转变治理方向、改变治理目标与调整控制范围、优化监控指标等方面提出了水源型流域污染系统控制科技支撑的战略建议.     

基于决策树的辽宁省北部沙漠化信息提取研究

以沙漠化问题较突出的辽宁省北部地区为例,选取2007年Landsat 5 TM遥感影像作为基本数据源,通过对影像中耕地、林地、草地、水域等常见地物及典型沙漠化土地进行光谱特征分析和波段间的相互运算,将修改型土壤调整植被指数（MSAVI）、归一化差异水体指数（NDWI）和遥感图像缨帽变换后的土壤亮度指数（SBI）、绿度植被指数（GVI）及湿度指数（WVI）等特征变量融入决策树分类模型后进行分层分离,从而实现对沙漠化信息的高精度提取。结果显示,决策树分类法可排除提取地物时的干扰信息,是保证沙漠化土地信息快速自动提取的方法之一。     

2014~2017北京市气象条件和人为排放变化对空气质量改善的贡献评估

2014～2017年北京地区霾日数和污染日数逐年减少,PM_(2.5)、PM_(10)、SO_2和NO_2年平均质量浓度下降,污染程度缓解,采暖期中的11～12月尤为明显.针对空气质量的显著改善,从气象条件的改善和减排措施两方面进行探讨分析,并结合数值模式和大数据挖掘技术实现气象和排放对大气污染贡献率的定量化研究.结果表明,2017年与过去3 a相比,平均风速增加7. 9%,≥3. 4 m·s~(-1)的风速频次最高(10. 6%),≥70%湿度日占比最小(25. 1%);其中,采暖期与过去3 a同期相比,小风日数减少8. 6%、大气环境容量指数和通风指数平均增加约11%,边界层高度以3. 2%·a~(-1)的速率升高,尤其11～12月各要素改善更显著,且该时段内2014年各因子变化与2017年相似.非采暖期(4～10月)累积降水量558. 3 mm,仅次于2016年,有利于污染物的清除和湿沉降.利用WRF-CHEM对霾和污染频发的12月进行模拟发现,气象要素的改变导致2017年12月北京PM_(2.5)质量浓度较2014～2016年同期分别降低5%、38%和25%.因缺少政府实际施行的减排方案,无法利用WRF-CHEM量化气象和减排的具体贡献率,因此借助大数据挖掘算法,基于K近邻算法(KNN)和支持向量机(SVM)模型对气象和减排对空气质量改善的贡献进行评估,结果显示2017年减少的霾日和重污染日,65. 0%归因于减排的贡献,35. 0%归因为气象条件的改善.可见,气象与生态环境部门应继续加强数据开放共享,科学开展气象条件预报与减排评估.     

多点激励下圆柱面巨型网格结构地震响应分析

空间相关性对大跨度空间结构的影响不容忽视。本文采用动力时程分析方法对圆柱面巨型网格结构进行了多点激励下的地震响应分析,并与一致激励下的结构地震响应进行对比,探讨了主体结构单独承载和子结构参与协同承载这2种情况下,不同行波激励对结构关键节点和杆件响应的影响及其变化特点;通过比较分析结构在多点激励和一致激励下的响应差异,得出圆柱面巨型网格结构在地震输入时需考虑多点激励的结论,可供该类结构的抗震设计参考。     

A framework for allocating conservation resources among multiple threats and actions

Land managers decide how to allocate resources among multiple threats that can be addressed through multiple possible actions. Additionally, these actions vary in feasibility, effectiveness, and cost. We sought to provide a way to optimize resource allocation to address multiple threats when multiple management options are available, including mutually exclusive options. Formulating the decision as a combinatorial optimization problem, our framework takes as inputs the expected impact and cost of each threat for each action (including do nothing) and for each overall budget identifies the optimal action to take for each threat. We compared the optimal solution to an easy to calculate greedy algorithm approximation and a variety of plausible ranking schemes. We applied the framework to management of multiple introduced plant species in Australian alpine areas. We developed a model of invasion to predict the expected impact in 50 years for each species-action combination that accounted for each species’ current invasion state (absent, localized, widespread); arrival probability; spread rate; impact, if present, of each species; and management effectiveness of each species-action combination. We found that the recommended action for a threat changed with budget; there was no single optimal management action for each species; and considering more than one candidate action can substantially increase the management plan's overall efficiency. The approximate solution (solution ranked by marginal cost-effectiveness) performed well when the budget matched the cost of the prioritized actions, indicating that this approach would be effective if the budget was set as part of the prioritization process. The ranking schemes varied in performance, and achieving a close to optimal solution was not guaranteed. Global sensitivity analysis revealed a threat's expected impact and, to a lesser extent, management effectiveness were the most influential parameters, emphasizing the need to focus research and monitoring efforts on their quantification.     

Environmental cost of using poor decision metrics to prioritize environmental projects

Conservation decision makers commonly use project‐scoring metrics that are inconsistent with theory on optimal ranking of projects. As a result, there may often be a loss of environmental benefits. We estimated the magnitudes of these losses for various metrics that deviate from theory in ways that are common in practice. These metrics included cases where relevant variables were omitted from the benefits metric, project costs were omitted, and benefits were calculated using a faulty functional form. We estimated distributions of parameters from 129 environmental projects from Australia, New Zealand, and Italy for which detailed analyses had been completed previously. The cost of using poor prioritization metrics (in terms of lost environmental values) was often high—up to 80% in the scenarios we examined. The cost in percentage terms was greater when the budget was smaller. The most costly errors were omitting information about environmental values (up to 31% loss of environmental values), omitting project costs (up to 35% loss), omitting the effectiveness of management actions (up to 9% loss), and using a weighted‐additive decision metric for variables that should be multiplied (up to 23% loss). The latter 3 are errors that occur commonly in real‐world decision metrics, in combination often reducing potential benefits from conservation investments by 30–50%. Uncertainty about parameter values also reduced the benefits from investments in conservation projects but often not by as much as faulty prioritization metrics.     

Plant blindness and the implications for plant conservation

Plant conservation initiatives lag behind and receive considerably less funding than animal conservation projects. We explored a potential reason for this bias: a tendency among humans to neither notice nor value plants in the environment. Experimental research and surveys have demonstrated higher preference for, superior recall of, and better visual detection of animals compared with plants. This bias has been attributed to perceptual factors such as lack of motion by plants and the tendency of plants to visually blend together but also to cultural factors such as a greater focus on animals in formal biological education. In contrast, ethnographic research reveals that many social groups have strong bonds with plants, including nonhierarchical kinship relationships. We argue that plant blindness is common, but not inevitable. If immersed in a plant‐affiliated culture, the individual will experience language and practices that enhance capacity to detect, recall, and value plants, something less likely to occur in zoocentric societies. Therefore, conservation programs can contribute to reducing this bias. We considered strategies that might reduce this bias and encourage plant conservation behavior. Psychological research demonstrates that people are more likely to support conservation of species that have human‐like characteristics and that support for conservation can be increased by encouraging people to practice empathy and anthropomorphism of nonhuman species. We argue that support for plant conservation may be garnered through strategies that promote identification and empathy with plants.