Analysis of the Trend and Seasonal Cycle of Carbon Monoxide Concentrations in an Urban Area (4 pp)

Background, Aim and Scope Air quality is an field of major concern in large cities. This problem has led administrations to introduce plans and regulations to reduce pollutant emissions. The analysis of variations in the concentration of pollutants is useful when evaluating the effectiveness of these plans. However, such an analysis cannot be undertaken using standard statistical techniques, due to the fact that concentrations of atmospheric pollutants often exhibit a lack of normality and are autocorrelated. On the other hand, if long-term trends of any pollutant’s emissions are to be detected, meteorological effects must be removed from the time series analysed, due to their strong masking effects. Materials and Methods The application of statistical methods to analyse temporal variations is illustrated using monthly carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations observed at an urban site. The sampling site is located at a street intersection in central Valencia (Spain) with a high traffic density. Valencia is the third largest city in Spain. It is a typical Mediterranean city in terms of its urban structure and climatology. The sampling site started operation in January 1994 and monitored CO ground level concentrations until February 2002. Its geographic coordinates are W0°22′52″ N39°28′05″ and its altitude is 11 m. Two nonparametric trend tests are applied. One of these is robust against serial correlation with regards to the false rejection rate, when observations have a strong persistence or when the sample size per month is small. A nonparametric analysis of the homogeneity of trends between seasons is also discussed. A multiple linear regression model is used with the transformed data, including the effect of meteorological variables. The method of generalized least squares is applied to estimate the model parameters to take into account the serial dependence of the residuals of this model. This study also assesses temporal changes using the Kolmogorov-Zurbenko (KZ) filter. The KZ filter has been shown to be an effective way to remove the influence of meteorological conditions on O₃ and PM to examine underlying trends. Results The nonparametric tests indicate a decreasing, significant trend in the sampled site. The application of the linear model yields a significant decrease every twelve months of 15.8% for the average monthly CO concentration. The 95% confidence interval for the trend ranges from 13.9% to 17.7%. The seasonal cycle also provides significant results. There are no differences in trends throughout the months. The percentage of CO variance explained by the linear model is 90.3%. The KZ filter separates out long, short-term and seasonal variations in the CO series. The estimated, significant, long-term trend every year results in 10.3% with this method. The 95% confidence interval ranges from 8.8% to 11.9%. This approach explains 89.9% of the CO temporal variations. Discussion The differences between the linear model and KZ filter trend estimations are due to the fact that the KZ filter performs the analysis on the smoothed data rather than the original data. In the KZ filter trend estimation, the effect of meteorological conditions has been removed. The CO short-term componentis attributable to weather and short-term fluctuations in emissions. There is a significant seasonal cycle. This component is a result of changes in the traffic, the yearly meteorological cycle and the interactions between these two factors. There are peaks during the autumn and winter months, which have more traffic density in the sampled site. There is a minimum during the month of August, reflecting the very low level of vehicle emissions which is a direct consequence of the holiday period. Conclusions The significant, decreasing trend implies to a certain extent that the urban environment in the area is improving. This trend results from changes in overall emissions, pollutant transport, climate, policy and economics. It is also due to the effect of introducing reformulated gasoline. The additives enable vehicles to burn fuel with a higher air/fuel ratio, thereby lowering the emission of CO. The KZ filter has been the most effective method to separate the CO series components and to obtain an estimate of the long-term trend due to changes in emissions, removing the effect of meteorological conditions. Recommendations and Perspectives Air quality managers and policy-makers must understand the link between climate and pollutants to select optimal pollutant reduction strategies and avoid exceeding emission directives. This paper analyses eight years of ambient CO data at a site with a high traffic density, and provides results that are useful for decision-making. The assessment of long-term changes in air pollutants to evaluate reduction strategies has to be done while taking into account meteorological variability     

Influence of new town development on the urban heat island - The case of the Bundang area

Five new towns have been developed around the Seoul metropolitan area since 1996. However, these new towns generate lots of traffic and related problems in the areas including those new towns and Seoul as a result of increases in population and a lack of ecological-self-sufficiency. Currently, construction of another new town is under deliberation, and what should be a major consider is the notion that the new town be located within a wide, green zone. Many studies have revealed that green space can play an important role in improving urban eco-meteorological capability and air quality. In order to analyze the urban heat island which will be created by the new urban development, and to investigate the local thermal environment and its negative effects caused by a change of land use type and urbanization, Landsat TM images were used for extraction of urban surface temperature according to changes of land use over the last 15 years. These data are analyzed together with digital land use and topographic information. As a study result, it was found the urban heat island of the study area from 198.5 to 1999 rapidly developed which showed a difference of mean temperature above 2.0. Before the Bundang new town construction the temperature of the residential area was the same as a forest, but during the new town construction in 1991 analysis revealed the creation of an urban heat island. The temperature of a forest whose size is over 50% of the investigation area was lowest, and thus the presence of a forest is believed to have a direct cooling effect on the urban environment and its surroundings. The mean temperature of the residential and commercial areas in the study was found to be 4.5 higher than the forest, and therefore this part of land use is believed to be the main factor causing the temperature increase of the urban heat island.     

抚顺生态城市建设的现状与措施

介绍生态平衡城市的基本条件及抚顺市在建设生态平衡型城市中的基本状况的基础上提出了相关的措施。根据归纳和调查目前抚顺市在经济发展的9项指标中只有2项，环境保护指标15项中只有8项满足生态平衡型城市方面的指标。这说明抚顺市在这方面还存在着很大差距，于是文中进一步提出了相关建议和措施。     

城市可持续性:欧洲城市改造的经验与启示

全球化和城市化使得世界城市发展面临着严重的生态环境问题与挑战,城市可持续性是解决这些问题的根本出路.本文利用欧洲城市改造的案例对城市可持续性进行了分析和研究,通过城市可持续性的原则、特点和影响因素分析,重点讨论了欧洲地方环境行动计划,以及项目特点、预算来源、战略目标、管理形式和行动计划与方案,指出切实可行的行动计划、普遍的公众参与、充足的资金来源、相关利益人的协作体、信息技术应用是城市可持续性和竞争力提升的根本保证.     

柴油汽车掺烧LPG降低黑烟排放技术

研究了柴油机掺烧液化石油气(LPG)以降低黑烟排放的技术方案，并开发出了一种以独特型板调节装置为特征的机械控制式柴油/LPG双燃料供给系统。发动机不改变原有结构加装该系统后即成为柴油/LPG双燃料发动机，可以同时燃烧柴油和LPG两种燃料，并且在整个工作范围内，随着工况变化能够按照预先优化设定的型板型线规律而自动调节柴油／LPG供给量比例，使烟度降低50％以上，同时满足经济性、动力性以及操作性能等要求，此外，也可以切换为单独燃烧柴油，而不改变发动机的原有性能。该系统结构简单、成本低廉，非常适合于改装城市在用公交车，降低其黑烟排放。     

Occurence and Distribution of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Ankara Precipitation

Urban atmospheric environment contains many trace organic pollutants that are related to the incomplete fuel combustion in domestic heating, industrial plants and automobile traffic. Removal of these pollutants from the atmosphere takes place through wet and dry deposition as well as chemical transformations. In this study, concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in wet deposition samples were determined at an urban site of Turkey. Wet and dry deposition samples were collected using Andersen Rain Sampler. The sampler was modified accordingly for the collection of organic pollutants. Collected samples were preconcentrated by using solid phase extraction (SPE) disks and consecutively analyzed by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). Among the 13 compounds quantified in this study, anthracene, fluoranthene, and pyrene were found more frequently and at elevated concentrations (202, 271 and 260 ng L^-1 mean concentrations, respectively).Concentrations of PAHs were found to be high in winter period.     

DENSITY CURRENT INTRUSIONS IN AN ICE-COVERED URBAN LAKE1

ABSTRACT: Evidence is presented that snowmelt runoff from an urban watershed can produce density current intrusions (underflows) in a lake. Several episodes of density current intrusions are documented. Water temperatures and salinities measured near the bottom of a 10 m deep Minneapolis lake during the late winter warming periods in 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1995 show significant rapid changes which are correlated with observed higher air temperatures and snowmelt runoff. The snowmelt runoff entering this particular lake (Ryan Lake) has increased electrical conductivity, salinity, and density. The source of the salinity is the salt spread on urban streets in the winter. Heating of littoral waters in spring may also contribute to the occurrence of the sinking flows, but is clearly not the only cause.     

HEAVY RAINFALL DISTRIBUTIONS BY SEASON IN LOUISIANA: SYNOPTIC INTERPRETATIONS AND QUANTILE ESTIMATES1

ABSTRACT: In most studies, quantile estimates of extreme 24-hour rainfall are given in annual probabilities. The probability of experiencing an excessive storm event, however, differs throughout the year. As a result, this paper explored the differences between heavy rainfall distributions by season in Louisiana. It was concluded by using the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests that the distribution of heavy rainfall events differs significantly between particular seasons at the sites near the Gulf Coast. Furthermore, seasonal frequency curves varied dramatically at the four sites examined. Mixed distributions within these data were not found to be problematic, but the mechanisms that produced the events were found to change seasonally. Extreme heavy rainfall events in winter and spring were primarily generated by frontal weather systems, while summer and fall events had high proportions of events produced by tropical disturbances and airmass (free-convective) conditions.     

UNCERTAINTY IN ESTIMATING BANKFULL CONDITIONS1

ABSTRACT: Bankfull depth and discharge are basic input parameters to stream planform, stream restoration, and highway crossing designs, as well as to the development of hydraulic geometry relationships and the classification of streams. Unfortunately, there are a wide variety of definitions for bankfull that provide a range of values, and the actual selection of bankfull is subjective. In this paper, the relative uncertainty in determining the bankfull depth and discharge is quantified, first by examining the variability in the estimates of bankfull and second by using fuzzy numbers to describe bankfull depth. Fuzzy numbers are used to incorporate uncertainty due to vagueness in the definition of bankfull and subjectivity in the selection of bankfull. Examples are provided that demonstrate the use of a fuzzy bankfull depth in sediment trans. port and in stream classification. Using fuzzy numbers to describe bankfull depth rather than a deterministic value allows the engineer to base designs and decisions on a range of possible values and associated degrees of belief that the bankfull depths take on each value in that range.