ALTERNATIVES TO THE USE OF AGRICULTURAL DRAINAGE WELLS1

ABSTRACT: A large number of agricultural drainage wells (ADWs) are located in north-central Iowa. These wells permit sediments, pesticides, nitrate, and bacteria in surface and subsurface drainage water to enter regional aquifers that are currently being used for drinking-water supplies, mostly by rural families and communities. This paper reports some possible alternatives to control the entry of surface and subsurface drainage waters into groundwater systems, and describes a methodology to make comprehensive economic feasibility studies of alternative drainage outlets. The estimated cost of providing main subsurface drains varied from $220 to $960 per hectare. If the use of ADWs was completely eliminated without providing alternative drainage, it is estimated that the average annual loss to the farmers of the area would be at least $270 per hectare in reduced crop yields. Of course, losses would be weather dependent and highly variable. Management practices to reduce the pollutant load in water draining to ADWs are also discussed.     

Environmental performance of urban roadside traders in Jos,Nigeria

In the last ten years official location policy in Nigeria for urban roadside traders, an enterprising group of urban poor operating at the lowest level of the informal sector of the economy has been very negative. Government believes that they should be removed from the streets and tucked away in obscure locations because of their tendency to deface the streets with litter and for causing vehicular and pedestrian traffic congestion. This paper identifies and assesses the magnitude of pollution created by the traders as a prelude to evolving a planning policy and strategy for regulating and formally accommodating street traders in good locations while still ensuring good environmental quality.     

O&M SPENDING LEVELS IN THIRD WORLD IRRIGATION SYSTEMS: EXPLORING ECONOMIC ALTERNATIVES1

ABSTRACT: Third World irrigation and drainage systems have experienced major declines recently in both capability and performance. This is due initially to working them well beyond their design capaci-capacities; scouring, sedimentation, and overtopping result. Chronic O&M underfunding then adds heavily to this worsening malaise. International donors have assisted irrigation departments with rehabilitation projects and programs to improve O&M effectiveness on a grand (billions of dollars) scale. Despite their historical propensity to examine, almost fastidiously, program economic justifications (B/C, IRR, etc), the donors apparently have glossed over two basic analytic elements for (a) more spending on O&M as distinct from an equivalent spending on other means to provide farmers with an m³ of water; and (b) different levels of O&M spending on canals and drains. Surely those different levels provide differing benefits, in total, and at the margin. Which level is most economic? This paper identifies these latter analytical issues, posits methodologies key to an O&M spending level analysis, and discusses the information base. Particular attention is paid to identifying relevant costs and benefits, and to suggesting supplementary criteria for O&M spending level selection. The paper is an exercise in delineation of an imminently practical area of irrigation engineering economics.     

Effective Planning and Implementation of Ecological Rehabilitation Projects: A Case Study of the Regional Municipality of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada)

The literature guides environmental planning and, specifically, how to use ecological rehabilitation projects to achieve long-term planning goals and landscape-scale environmental sustainability. There is, however, a perceived gap between principles in the literature and the use of them by practitioners involved in smaller-scale ecological rehabilitation projects. Using interviews with practitioners involved in 11 projects within the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, we tested whether practitioners used five principles for effective planning and implementation of ecological rehabilitation that we derived from the literature. These five principles were: establishing political and ecological context, using ecologically appropriate objectives and practices, using comparative multidisciplinary and cross-scale approaches, using adaptive planning and implementation, and establishing good communication within and external to projects. Few projects followed all five principles, and practitioners indicated that they used three more project-specific principles: obtaining political/social support, promoting projects and changing attitudes about projects, and securing sufficient and persistent funding to maintain a project's life. While the literature emphasizes that ecological rehabilitation is only effective if projects are coordinated on a watershed basis, most practitioners focused solely on the goals of their specific project. The gap between literature and practice may arise because most practitioners are new to the field of ecological rehabilitation and still are focused on the methods involved. Time pressures force practitioners to obviate the literature and get projects started quickly, lest support evaporate. Complicating these difficulties is decreased support from federal and provincial governments for large-scale environmental planning. It is unclear whether ecological rehabilitation projects in Waterloo Region (at least) will ever become effective at promoting landscape-scale ecological goals or remain smaller-scale stop-gaps.     

潮湿巷道风流温度与湿度变化规律分析

通过对矿井风流与围岩热湿交换理论的研究,提出理论上更可靠的风流温、湿度计算方法,编制了模拟解算矿井风流与围岩热湿交换的计算机程序,解算出潮湿巷道风流温度及湿度的变化规律,并分析通风时间、湿度系数等参数对风流温度及湿度变化规律的影响;沿风流流动方向,风流温度及湿度不断增加;巷道风流温度及湿度随着通风时间的增加而不断减小,通风时间越长减小的幅度越小;围岩壁面湿度系数对风流温度及湿度的影响较大,其他参数不变时,壁面湿度系数越大,风流温度越小,风流湿度越大。     

基于事故理论的城市轨道交通风险评价模型研究

笔者分析了城市轨道交通事故,在分析我国其他行业事故分类的基础上,确定城市轨道交通事故分类标准,即重大事故、大事故、险性事故和一般事故,并将不同事故分类情况及专家判断评分,按事故的大小不同换算成可以计算的计算尺度,根据事故种类不同计算出事故折算因子,根据风险理论的评价方法,建立了地铁风险评价模型,对地铁的危险性进行量化定级,并通过具体实例进行综合分析评价,该风险评价模型具有一定的工程意义。     

PLANNING FOR THE REHABILITATION OF GRAVEL PITS1

ABSTRACT: By field investigations and planning, it is profitable to rehabilitate gravel pits as recreational lakes in urban areas. Some of the important aspects to be considered are topography, soil, surface water and groundwater. A case study is presented and some general guidelines in the rehabilitation process are given. This kind of a use for derelict land is important at the present time as there is a growing demand for recreational lakes in urban areas.     

Rehabilitation of a lowland river: Reconciling flood defence with habitat diversity and geomorphological sustainability

Geomorphologically appropriate rehabilitation measures were proposed to enhance the in-stream environment of the lowland River Idle, north Nottinghamshire, UK. However, the River Idle has multi-functional management requirements including those of flood defence so environmental enhancement must be pursued without significantly increasing the flood risk. Hydraulic testing of rehabilitation proposals is complicated because of the stringent assumptions about flow and morphology in ‘traditional’ hydraulic models. While new generation two- and three-dimension hydraulic models may overcome some of these problems, they are extremely data intensive, require advanced modelling capabilities and are, therefore, very expensive to apply. Also, they do not yet predict morphology-flow interactions adequately. As an alternative, several simple hydraulic models were applied to test the rehabilitation proposals, based on a fitness-for-purpose criterion.BENDFLOW was applied to fine tune the optimal siting of measures and to estimate the additional near-bank scour generated by proposed bend re-profiling. HMODEL2 and the FCFA method were used to test the impact on local channel conveyance capacities and HECRAS was applied to simulate the impact of the proposals on regional flood defence. Indicative results from the testing suggested a maximum increase in near-bank scour of 0·15 m in re-profiled bends, a loss of approximately 10% in flood conveyance locally due to deflector installation or reed and tree planting, and a 0·12 m increase in flood stage within the reach for a 15 year flood. The modelling results were acceptable to the management authority as an indication of an acceptable compromise between flood defence and conservation interests, and construction of the measures followed in 1996. It is clearly that it will require the results of post-project monitoring to indicate whether compromises made to the rehabilitation initiatives in order to satisfy flood defence requirements have unduly reduced their environmental enhancement potential but, for assessing the proposed methods, the models are recommended for use other lowland river environments.     

Study On the Hydraulic Characteristics of Taichung Harbour in Taiwan

For this study, field measurements of current profiles, buoy trajectories and the lag of two tidal stations were performed to explore the flow characteristics of Taichung Harbour. in order to distinguish the effects of wind drift current on circulation inside Taichung Harbour, field surveys during both summer and monsoon (winter) season were completed separately. the speed of the drift current was about 3.5% that of the, wind speed, based on the field data. the horizontal dispersion coefficients were close to Bowden's (1965) formula for the tidal current. the water temperature showed a two-layer profile, with the mixing thickness about 4 to 6 metres for the upper layer. the corresponding Richardson number was about 70. the tidal lag between the two tidal stations was 9.68 minutes. All the results agree well with the theoretical results.     

长江流域洪灾与生态破坏的关系浅析:Ⅲ生态重建与减灾对策

在分析长江流域１９９８ 年洪水灾害与生态环境破坏的关系的基础上，提出了生态重建规划应以可持续发展为指导思想，坚持经济建设、社会发展与生态环境保护相协调的基本原则；指出了生态保护、恢复、重建的要点与方略；提出了防灾、减灾的对策建议。