Prioritizing the provision of urban ecosystem services in deprived areas,a question of environmental justice

The distribution of urban ecosystem services (UES) is often uneven across socioeconomic groups, leading to environmental justice issues. Understanding the distribution of UES across a landscape can help managers ensure an equitable distribution of services. While many past studies have focused on the distribution of green spaces in relation to socioeconomic variables, this research analyzes the distribution of UES provided by these green spaces. This research quantified air pollution removal, atmospheric carbon reduction, and surface runoff mitigation provided by urban trees in Strasbourg city (France). The provision of these three UES was studied at the census block scale by creating an index of UES delivery, which was contrasted with a constructed social deprivation index. Our results show that there is no significant association between the delivery of UES and social deprivation. Some deprived populations benefit from high UES delivery. Results also suggest that mapping associations between UES delivery and social deprivation should be integrated with future development plans to enhance the equitable distribution of UES. This study provides insights into the French context where studies about the distribution of UES at a small-area level remain lacking.     

我国东北黑土丘陵区小流域土壤有机质空间分布模拟

为探索小流域w(SOM)(SOM为土壤有机质)空间分布模拟的最佳方法,以我国东北黑土丘陵区海沟河小流域为例,借助地统计学和3S技术提取与w(SOM)显著相关的地形及环境因子,对海沟河小流域表层(0~20 cm)w(SOM)分别进行协同克里格插值、回归克里格插值和地理加权回归克里格空间插值模拟,并进行精度验证. 结果表明:我国东北黑土丘陵区海沟河小流域表层w(SOM)平均值为12.96 g/kg,空间变异程度为中等. 海拔、距水系距离均与w(SOM)显著相关,能够用来辅助w(SOM)的空间分布插值;与协同克里格插值结果相比,回归克里格对w(SOM)的插值精度提高了56.09%;地理加权回归克里格插值精度提高了90.87%;对地理加权回归克里格插值所产生的残差进行二次统计分析及合理插值,能够进一步提高插值模拟精度;将人类干扰因素纳入插值模型,是未来提高w(SOM)空间分布模拟精度的关键. 研究显示,地理加权回归克里格插值有效提高了w(SOM)空间插值模拟的精度,并且存在改进和提高的空间.      

港湾快速城市化地区河流水质主控因子识别及调控方案

识别快速城市化地区的河流污染的主控因子,对于科学实施河流污染防治调控及实现区域经济又好又快发展具有积极意义。运用流量校准浓度分析法、多元逐步回归分析相结合的方法识别连云港港湾快速城市化地区影响水质变化的主控因子,可准确把握该类区域河流污染趋势及主导原因,进而提出相应的优选调控方案。     

Evaluating safety-influencing factors at stop-controlled intersections using automated video analysis

Introduction: Although stop signs are popular in North America, they have become controversial in cities like Montreal, Canada where they are often installed to reduce vehicular speeds and improve pedestrian safety despite limited evidence demonstrating their effectiveness. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of stop-control configuration (and other features) on safety using statistical models and surrogate measures of safety (SMoS), namely vehicle speed, time-to-collision (TTC), and post-encroachment time (PET), while controlling for features of traffic, geometry, and built environment. Methods: This project leverages high-resolution user trajectories extracted from video data collected for 100 intersections, 336 approaches, and 130,000 road users in Montreal to develop linear mixed-effects regression models to account for within-site and within-approach correlations. This research proposes the Intersection Exposure Group (IEG) indicator, an original method for classifying microscopic exposure of pedestrians and vehicles. Results: Stop signs were associated with an average decrease in approach speed of 17.2 km/h and 20.1 km/h, at partially and fully stop-controlled respectively. Cyclist or pedestrian presence also significantly lower vehicle speeds. The proposed IEG measure was shown to successfully distinguish various types of pedestrian-vehicle interactions, allowing for the effect of each interaction type to vary in the model. Conclusions: The presence of stop signs significantly reduced approach speeds compared to uncontrolled approaches. Though several covariates were significantly related to TTC and PET for vehicle pairs, the models were unable to demonstrate a significant relationship between stop signs and vehicle–pedestrian interactions. Therefore, drawing conclusions regarding pedestrian safety is difficult. Practical Applications: As pedestrian safety is frequently used to justify new stop sign installations, this result has important policy implications. Policies implementing stop signs to reduce pedestrian crashes may be less effective than other interventions. Enforcement and education efforts, along with geometric design considerations, should accompany any changes in traffic control.     

Identifying Biotic Integrity and Water Chemistry Relations in Nonwadeable Rivers of Wisconsin: Toward the Development of Nutrient Criteria

We sampled 41 sites on 34 nonwadeable rivers that represent the types of rivers in Wisconsin, and the kinds and intensities of nutrient and other anthropogenic stressors upon each river type. Sites covered much of United States Environmental Protection Agency national nutrient ecoregions VII—Mostly Glaciated Dairy Region, and VIII—Nutrient Poor, Largely Glaciated upper Midwest. Fish, macroinvertebrates, and three categories of environmental variables including nutrients, other water chemistry, and watershed features were collected using standard protocols. We summarized fish assemblages by index of biotic integrity (IBI) and its 10 component measures, and macroinvertebrates by 2 organic pollution tolerance and 12 proportional richness measures. All biotic and environmental variables represented a wide range of conditions, with biotic measures ranging from poor to excellent status, despite nutrient concentrations being consistently higher than reference concentrations reported for the regions. Regression tree analyses of nutrients on a suite of biotic measures identified breakpoints in total phosphorus (~0.06 mg/l) and total nitrogen (~0.64 mg/l) concentrations at which biotic assemblages were consistently impaired. Redundancy analyses (RDA) were used to identify the most important variables within each of the three environmental variable categories, which were then used to determine the relative influence of each variable category on the biota. Nutrient measures, suspended chlorophyll a, water clarity, and watershed land cover type (forest or row-crop agriculture) were the most important variables and they explained significant amounts of variation within the macroinvertebrate (R ² = 60.6%) and fish (R ² = 43.6%) assemblages. The environmental variables selected in the macroinvertebrate model were correlated to such an extent that partial RDA analyses could not attribute variation explained to individual environmental categories, assigning 89% of the explained variation to interactions among the categories. In contrast, partial RDA attributed much of the explained variation to the nutrient (25%) and other water chemistry (38%) categories for the fish model. Our analyses suggest that it would be beneficial to develop criteria based upon a suite of biotic and nutrient variables simultaneously to deem waters as not meeting their designated uses.     

Nitrogen removal influence factors in A/O process and decision trees for nitrification/denitrification system

In order to improve nitrogen removal in anoxic/oxic(NO) process effectively for treating domestic wastewaters, the influence factors, DO( dissolved oxygen), nitrate recirculation, sludge recycle, SRT( solids residence time), influent COD/TN and HRT( hydraulic retention time) were studied. Results indicated that it was possible to increase nitrogen removal by using corresponding control strategies,such as, adjusting the DO set point according “to effluent ammonia concentration; manipulating nitrate recirculation flow according to nitrate concentration at the end of anoxic zone. Based on the experiments results, a knowledge-based approach for supervision of the nitrogen removal problems was considered, and decision trees for diagnosing nitrification and denitrification problems were built and successfully applied to NO process.     

支持向量回归方法在震级预测中的应用

本文阐述了支持向量回归(SVR)理论及其特性,提出了基于SVR的次年最大震级的预测方法,并对所选样本进行训练和预测,结果与实际值符合较好,理论分析和实例结果验证了基于SVR的震级预测方法比BP神经网络具有更高的预测精度和可靠性.     

Self-feedback LSTM regression model for real-time particle source apportionment

1. Download : Download high-res image (303KB)
2. Download : Download full-size image

     

Age and spatial distribution of the world's oldest trees

Extremely old trees have important roles in providing insights about historical climatic events and supporting cultural values, yet there has been limited work on their global distribution and conservation. We extracted information on 197,855 tree cores from 4854 sites and combined it with other tree age (e.g., the OLDLIST) data from a further 156 sites to determine the age of the world's oldest trees and quantify the factors influencing their global distribution. We found that extremely old trees >1000 years were rare. Among 30 individual trees that exceeded 2000 years old, 27 occurred in high mountains. We modeled maximum tree age with climatic, soil topographic, and anthropogenic variables, and our regression models demonstrated that elevation, human population density, soil carbon content, and mean annual temperature were key determinants of the distribution of the world's oldest trees. Specifically, our model predicted that many of the oldest trees will occur in high-elevation, cold, and arid mountains with limited human disturbance. This pattern was markedly different from that of the tallest trees, which were more likely to occur in relatively more mesic and productive locations. Global warming and expansion of human activities may induce rapid population declines of extremely old trees. New strategies, including targeted establishment of conservation reserves in remote regions, especially those in western parts of China and the United States, are required to protect these trees.