Comparative Evaluation of Three River Water Quality Models1

Abstract: Selection of a biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) reaction model to incorporate into dissolved oxygen (DO) water quality models is an overlooked choice available to river water quality modelers. Data from rivers can serve in screening methods to discriminate between competing water quality models. In this study, 15 published BOD and DO datasets based on a 7 year long study of the Bormida River in Italy are used to calibrate three‐multiorder BOD models: first‐order, three‐halves order, and second‐order, which are then included in three corresponding DO models which incorporate these BOD models. The adequacy of the first‐order, three‐halves order and second‐order BOD models was evaluated by calculating the root mean square error between a model and data. A similar procedure was followed to evaluate three DO models, each of which incorporated one of the three BOD models. The first‐order BOD model most frequently fit the river data best, followed by the three‐halves order and the second‐order BOD models. The DO model incorporating a first‐order BOD model most frequently fit the data best, followed by the DO order incorporating second‐order BOD and the DO model incorporating three‐halves order BOD.     

Developing Nutrient Criteria for Streams: An Evaluation of the Frequency Distribution Method1

Abstract: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends two statistical methods to States and Tribes for developing nutrient criteria. One establishes a criterion as the 75th percentile of a reference‐population frequency distribution, the other uses the 25th percentile of a general‐population distribution; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency suggests either method results in similar criteria. To evaluate each method, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (MT DEQ) assembled data from STORET and other sources to create a nutrient general population. MT DEQ’s reference‐stream project provided reference population data. Data were partitioned by ecoregions, and by seasons (winter, runoff, and growing) defined for the project. For each ecoregion and season, nutrient concentrations at the 75th percentile of the reference population were matched to their corresponding concentrations in the general population. Additionally, nutrient concentrations from five regional scientific studies were matched to their corresponding reference population concentrations; each study linked nutrients to impacts on water uses. Reference‐to‐general population matches were highly variable between ecoregions, as nutrients at the 75th percentile of reference corresponded to percentiles ranging from the 4th to the 97th of the general population. In contrast, case studies‐to‐reference matches were more consistent, matching on average to the 86th percentile of reference, with a coefficient of variation of 13%.     

Critical Evaluation of How the Rosgen Classification and Associated “Natural Channel Design” Methods Fail to Integrate and Quantify Fluvial Processes and Channel Response1

Abstract: Over the past 10 years the Rosgen classification system and its associated methods of “natural channel design” have become synonymous to some with the term “stream restoration” and the science of fluvial geomorphology. Since the mid 1990s, this classification approach has become widely adopted by governmental agencies, particularly those funding restoration projects. The purposes of this article are to present a critical review, highlight inconsistencies and identify technical problems of Rosgen’s “natural channel design” approach to stream restoration. This paper’s primary thesis is that alluvial streams are open systems that adjust to altered inputs of energy and materials, and that a form‐based system largely ignores this critical component. Problems with the use of the classification are encountered with identifying bankfull dimensions, particularly in incising channels and with the mixing of bed and bank sediment into a single population. Its use for engineering design and restoration may be flawed by ignoring some processes governed by force and resistance, and the imbalance between sediment supply and transporting power in unstable systems. An example of how C5 channels composed of different bank sediments adjust differently and to different equilibrium morphologies in response to an identical disturbance is shown. This contradicts the fundamental underpinning of “natural channel design” and the “reference‐reach approach.” The Rosgen classification is probably best applied as a communication tool to describe channel form but, in combination with “natural channel design” techniques, are not diagnostic of how to mitigate channel instability or predict equilibrium morphologies. For this, physically based, mechanistic approaches that rely on quantifying the driving and resisting forces that control active processes and ultimate channel morphology are better suited as the physics of erosion, transport, and deposition are the same regardless of the hydro‐physiographic province or stream type because of the uniformity of physical laws.     

塔里木盆地北缘盐渍地遥感调查及成因分析——以渭干河-库车河三角洲绿洲为例

土壤盐渍化严重威胁着干旱区绿洲的稳定与可持续发展，因此监测盐渍地的分布范围和程度以及分析其成因有着重要的意义。以塔里木盆地北缘盐渍地普遍发育区域渭干河-库车河三角洲绿洲为例，利用TM遥感影像，在野外调查的基础上，采用监督分类中的波谱角度分类法进行了盐渍地调查研究。该方法对盐渍地的提取精度可达到92％左右，是干旱区盐渍地监测的一种有效方法。在此基础上分析了渭干河-库车河三角洲绿洲盐渍地的分布范围与程度，并结合气候、地貌、水文、人类活动等因素，对盐渍化成因进行了讨论。结果表明：干旱荒漠气候是形成盐渍地的前提条件，母岩和母质含盐是形成盐渍地的物质基础，地表水和地下水的补给是形成盐渍地的动力，人为因素是形成灌区次生盐渍地的重要条件。     

SCREENING THE RELOCATION STRATEGIES OF WATER QUALITY MONITORING STATIONS BY COMPROMISE PROGRAMMING1

Water quality monitoring network designs historically have tended to use experience, intuition, and subjective judgment in siting monitoring stations only sporadically. Better design procedures for optimizing monitoring systems with respect to multiple criteria decision analysis had rarely been put into practice up front when the needs for intensive monitoring became critical. This paper describes a systematic relocation strategy that is organized to identify several significant planning objectives and consider a series of inherent constraints simultaneously. The planning objectives considered in this analysis are designed to enhance the detection possibility for lower compliance areas, reflect the emphasis for different attainable water uses at different locations, promote the potential detection for the lower degradation areas of pollutants, increase the protection degree of those areas with higher population density in the proximity of the river system, and strengthen the pre‐warning capability of water quality for water intakes. The constraint set contains the limitations of budget, the equity implication, and the detection sensitivity in the water environment. A case study in the Kao‐Ping River Basin, South Taiwan, demonstrates the application potential of this methodology based on a seamless integration between the optimization and the simulation models. It enables identification of the optimal locational pattern stepwise using the embedded screening and sequencing capacity in a compromise programming model. However, a well calibrated and verified water quality model is an indispensable tool in support of this multiobjective evaluation. Extra sampling procedures become necessary for the sites with sparse environmental information. Comparison of planning outcomes of compromise programming is made against previously achieved analyses by using weighted programming and fuzzy programming.     

SOURCES OF VARIABILITY IN CONDUCTING PEBBLE COUNTS: THEIR POTENTIAL INFLUENCE ON THE RESULTS OF STREAM MONITORING PROGRAMS1

Pebble counts have been used for a variety of monitoring projects and are an important component of stream evaluation efforts throughout the United States. The utility of pebble counts as a monitoring tool is, however, based on the monitoring objectives and the assumption that data are collected with sufficient precision to meet those objectives. Depending upon the objective, sources of variability that can limit the precision of pebble count data include substrate heterogeneity at a site, differences in substrate among sample locations within a stream reach, substrate variability among streams, differences in when the substrate sample is collected, differences in how and where technicians pick up substrate particles, and how consistently technicians measure the intermediate axis of a selected particle. This study found that each of these sources of variability is of sufficient magnitude to affect results of monitoring projects. Therefore, actions such as observer training, increasing the number of pebbles measured, evaluating several riffles within a reach, evaluating permanent sites, and narrowing the time window during which pebble counts are conducted should be considered in order to minimize variability. The failure to account for sources of variability associated with pebble counts within the study design may result in failing to meet monitoring objectives.     

Nitrous oxide emission from some English and Welsh rivers and estuaries

Nutrient and N₂O concentrations in the water columns were measured seasonally over a full salinity range in the nutrified rivers Colne, Stour, Orwell, Deben, Trent, Ouse and Humber and their estuaries on the east coast of England between August 2001 and May 2002, and in the oligotrophic rivers Conwy, Dovey and Mawddach in North and West Wales between August 2002 and May 2003. Nutrient and N₂O concentrations in the nutrified English rivers and estuaries were much higher than those in the Welsh rivers. N₂O concentrations and % saturation in the estuaries were significantly correlated with nitrate, nitrite and ammonium concentrations in the water. The strongest correlation was with nitrite (r² = 0.56, p < 0.01), suggesting that nitrite was the most significant factor among the different nutrients in regulating N₂O concentration in the estuaries. N₂O concentrations in the English rivers and estuaries were supersaturated throughout the year with annual averages from 186.9 to 992.9%, indicating that these rivers and estuaries were sources of atmospheric N₂O, whereas in the Welsh rivers N₂O concentrations were much lower with annual averages from 113.6 to 137.4% saturation. Although the estuarine area in the Colne was almost the same as that in the Conwy, the annual N₂O emission from the Colne was much higher (937498 mol N yr^–1) than in the Conwy (23020 mol N yr^–1). On the east coast, riverine emissions of N₂O were only 0.5–12.5% of the total emission from rivers and estuaries. Thus rivers were negligible, but estuaries were significant contributors to the UK N₂O inventory.     

江苏内河船舶防污现状与对策研究

在研究分析江苏省船舶运输现状和特点、内河船舶污染现状和存在问题的基础上，提出了江苏省内河船舶防污措施及政策建议。     

昆仑山隧道渗(漏)水水力联系及水动力参数试验研究

隧道施工过程中经常发生隧道涌(漏)水现象,对施工或运营安全可能造成较大影响。为了从根本上治理隧道渗漏水害,首先必须详细准确了解水害的根源,即渗漏水点与地表水源之间的水力联系。对于岩溶管道水比较有效的研究方法是开展连通试验,而对于渗透性能差、水力联系复杂的基岩裂隙水地区开展连通试验是不多的, 尤其是在高纬度、高海拔、以及多年冻土地区开展隧道渗漏水水力联系试验研究尚属首次,值得进一步深入探讨研究。本文针对青藏铁路昆仑山隧道渗漏水情况,在详细调查研究基础上,采用多种形式的连通试验,对昆仑山隧道渗漏水的径流条件和围岩渗透性能进行分析,并进行渗漏水的主要水动力参数计算,为该隧道渗漏水害的治理提供了科学依据。